Relative periodic orbits in spatially extended Kolmogorov turbulence: from global to localized recurrence

Abstract

Recurrent invariant solutions provide a dynamical framework for interpreting turbulence, but their computation becomes increasingly difficult in spatially extended flows, where close whole-domain recurrences are rare. We study two-dimensional Kolmogorov flow in a [Lx,Ly] = [2pi,12pi] domain with Re = 10 using a distributed reduced-order model composed of a patch-based autoencoder and a neural ordinary differential equation. Near- recurrence candidates are refined by latent multiple shooting, decoded to physical space, screened under the full Navier-Stokes dynamics and supplied to a full-state Newton- Krylov solver. Fourteen candidates converge to relative periodic orbits (RPOs), with periods 3.65 < T <16.45. The catalogue contains both domain-filling states and RPOs with recurrent activity localised to a restricted cross-stream region. The weakly modulated surroundings generally remain finite-amplitude and distinct from the laminar solution. Selected localised RPOs persist under continuation in Reynolds number, and recurrent states can be reconverged after truncating substantial portions of their surroundings. In addition, the model trained at Ly = 12pi generates convergent RPO seeds at Ly = 6pi and 8pi without retraining. These results demonstrate that distributed learned dynamics can provide useful initial conditions for exact coherent states searches in extended domains and reveal recurrent solutions with strongly localised temporal dynamics.