HRT

Abstract

We provide a numerical exploration of the spiral regimes that appear in small-gap Taylor-Couette flow of radius ratio 0.883 and for high counter-rotating Reynolds numbers. In particular, the exporation is carried out for a fixed outer rotation Reynolds number value of R_o=-1200. The spiral regimes found beyond the linear stability critical values are tracked back as a function of the inner rotation Reynolds number R_i with an arch-length continuation scheme via Newton-Krylov algorithms suitably tailored for axially-moving and/or azimuthally rotating reference frames. The spirals found have been found to be subcritical. This study is the first step taken in order to provide the essential inner structure of the skeleton of equilibria that may be responsible for the subcritical transition and hysteretic phenomena that has been reported by many experimentalists in the past.