Cartography of high-dimensional flows: A visual guide to sections and slices

Abstract

Symmetry reduction by the method of slices quotients the continuous symmetries of chaotic flows by replacing the original state space by a set of charts, each covering a neighborhood of a dynamically important class of solutions, qualitatively captured by a `template'. Together these charts provide an atlas of the symmetry-reduced `slice' of state space, charting the regions of the manifold explored by the trajectories of interest. Within the slice, relative equilibria reduce to equilibria and relative periodic orbits reduce to periodic orbits. Visualizations of these solutions and their unstable manifolds reveal their interrelations and the role they play in organizing turbulence/chaos.