Tricritical Directed Percolation and Transitional Turbulence
Date:
This talk explores how body forces alter the canonical picture of the laminar–turbulent transition in pipe flow. By extending the standard framework of directed percolation to include external forcing, we identify a tricritical regime that interpolates between continuous and discontinuous transitions. The resulting phase diagram reveals how sufficiently strong body forces induce metastability, coexistence, and relaminarization—features observed in curved and centrifugal pipes. The analysis provides a unifying theoretical basis for diverse experimental and numerical observations of forced transitional turbulence.
Location: SERF building, UC San Diego