Spatiotemporal dynamics of an undriven dc glow discharge at intermediate pressures (p(0)r(0)=6.2 Torr cm, i<50 mA) is investigated experimentally. Spatiotemporal irregularity and windows of regular nonlinear waves occur and are found to depend on the discharge current. Above a threshold current column head oscillations arise and inject high-frequency ionization waves into the positive column that decay towards the anode through nonlinear wave coupling with a discrete eigenmode of the positive column. Regularity was found to be a result of commensuration of both waves and obeys a devil's staircase. Since column head oscillations occur in the transition region from cathode fall to positive column as result of discharge formation, the irregularities were internally driven. Spatiotemporal analysis by means of biorthogonal decomposition gives insights into the mechanism of irregularity and can be employed for characterization of spatiotemporal complexity.
In the positive column of a neon glow discharge, two different types of ionization waves occur simultaneously. The low-dimensional chaos arising from the nonlinear interaction between the two waves is controlled by a continuous feedback technique. The control strategy is derived from the time-delayed autosynchronization method. Two spatially displaced points of observation are used to obtain the control information, using the propagation characteristics of the chaotic wave.
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