From solitary waves to static patterns via spatiotemporal intermittency

Among the very rich range of possibilities for the dynamics of one dimensional fronts, this article presents, in a film draining experiment, the first observation of a continuous transition from solitary waves to a static spatially periodic pattern. Between these two extreme situations, a regime of colliding solitary waves exhibiting chaos with spatiotemporal intermittency is observed. These observations suggest the description of the static periodic pattern as being the result of a dense packing of propagating solitary waves, and its destabilization to spatiotemporal intermittency as the attempt of some solitary waves to propagate.