Hopf bifurcations to quasi-periodic solutions for the two-dimensional plane Poiseuille flow

This paper studies various Hopf bifurcations in the two-dimensional plane Poiseuille problem. For several values of the wavenumber α, we obtain the branch of periodic flows which are born at the Hopf bifurcation of the laminar flow. It is known that, taking α ≈ 1, the branch of periodic solutions has several Hopf bifurcations to quasi-periodic orbits. For the first bifurcation, calculations from other authors seem to indicate that the bifurcating quasi-periodic flows are stable and subcritical with respect to the Reynolds number, Re. By improving the precision of previous works we find that the bifurcating flows are unstable and supercritical with respect to Re. We have also analysed the second Hopf bifurcation of periodic orbits for several α, to find again quasi-periodic solutions with increasing Re. In this case the bifurcated solutions are stable to superharmonic disturbances for Re up to another new Hopf bifurcation to a family of stable 3-tori. The proposed numerical scheme is based on a full numerical integration of the Navier–Stokes equations, together with a division by 3 of their total dimension, and the use of a pseudo-Newton method on suitable Poincaré sections. The most intensive part of the computations has been performed in parallel. We believe that this methodology can also be applied to similar problems.

► Full numerical simulation of Navier–Stokes system in a channel. ► Numerical continuation of stable and unstable periodic flows. ► Study of bifurcations of periodic flows to quasi-periodic flows. ► Numerical continuation of stable and unstable quasi-periodic flows. ► Discussion of dynamical implications.