Gluing bifurcations in a dynamically complicated extended flow

A study was conducted to address the question of whether ideas from imperfect homoclinic bifurcations are relevant to the description of the dynamics of an extended fluid flow where both complicated motions and high multiplicity of states are present. Experiments were performed in a Taylor-Couette flow where viscous fluid confined between two concentric cylinders were driven round by rotation of the inner cylinder. Results lead to the conclusion that ideas from global bifurcation theory are robust and may well have relevance to a broad class of fluid flows.