Transition to chaos in a reduced-order model of a shear layer

The present work studies the nonlinear dynamics of a shear layer, driven by a body force and confined between parallel walls, a simplified setting to study transitional and turbulent shear layers. It was introduced by Nogueira & Cavalieri (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 907, 2021, A32), and is here studied using a reduced-order model based on a Galerkin projection of the Navier-Stokes system. By considering a confined shear layer with free-slip boundary conditions on the walls, periodic boundary conditions in streamwise and spanwise directions may be used, simplifying the system and enabling the use of methods of dynamical systems theory. A basis of eight modes is used in the Galerkin projection, representing the mean flow, Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices, rolls, streaks and oblique waves, structures observed in the cited work, and also present in shear layers and jets. A dynamical system is obtained, and its transition to chaos is studied. Increasing Reynolds number leads to pitchfork and Hopf bifurcations, and the latter leads to a limit cycle with amplitude modulation of vortices, as in the direct numerical simulations by Nogueira & Cavalieri. Further increase of leads to the appearance of a chaotic saddle, followed by the emergence of quasi-periodic and chaotic attractors. The chaotic attractors suffer a merging crisis for higher, leading to a chaotic dynamics with amplitude modulation and phase jumps of vortices. This is reminiscent of observations of coherent structures in turbulent jets, suggesting that the model represents a dynamics consistent with features of shear layers and jets.