Defect Turbulence in Inclined Layer Convection

We report experimental results on the defect turbulent state of undulation chaos in inclined layer convection of a fluid with Prandtl number ≈1. By measuring defect density and undulation wave number, we find that the onset of undulation chaos coincides with the theoretically predicted onset for stable, stationary undulations. At stronger driving, we observe a competition between ordered undulations and undulation chaos, suggesting bistability between a fixed-point attractor and spatiotemporal chaos. In the defect turbulent regime, we measured the defect creation, annihilation, entering, leaving, and rates. We derive a universal probability distribution function which agrees with the experimental findings.