Using Horseshoes to Create Coherent Structures

Abstract

In this letter, we show that coherent structures are related to folds of horseshoes which are present in chaotic systems. We develop techniques that allow us to construct coherent structures by manipulating folds in three prototypical problems: a 1-D chaotic map, a 2-D chaotic map, and a chaotically advected fluid. The ability to construct such structures is of practical importance for the control of chaotic or turbulent extended systems such as fluids, plasmas, and coupled oscillator arrays.