A kind of Lagrangian chaotic property of the Arnold-Beltrami-Childress flow

Abstract

Three-dimensional steady-state Arnold-Beltrami-Childress (ABC) flow has a chaotic Lagrangian structure, and also satisfies the Navier-Stokes (NS) equations with an external force per unit mass. It is well-known that, although trajectories of a chaotic system have sensitive dependence on initial conditions, i.e. the famous ``butterfly-effect'', their statistical properties are often insensitive to small disturbances. This kind of chaos (such as governed by the Lorenz equations) is called normal-chaos. However, a new concept, i.e. ultra-chaos, has been reported recently, whose statistics are unstable to tiny disturbances. Thus, ultra-chaos represents higher disorder than normal chaos. In this paper, we illustrate that ultra-chaos widely exists in Lagrangian trajectories of fluid particles in steady-state ABC flow. Moreover, solving the NS equation when $Re=50$ with the ABC flow plus a very small disturbance as the initial condition, it is found that trajectories of nearly all fluid particles become ultra-chaotic when the transition from laminar to turbulence occurs. These numerical experiments and facts highly suggest that ultra-chaos should have a relationship with turbulence. This paper identifies differences between ultra-chaos and sensitivity of statistics to parameters. Possible relationships between ultra-chaos and the Poincar\'{e} section, ultra-chaos and ergodicity/non-ergodicity, etc., are discussed. The concept of ultra-chaos opens a new perspective of chaos, the Poincar\'{e} section, ergodicity/non-ergodicity, turbulence and their inter-relationships.