A COMPUTATIONAL STUDY OF RAYLEIGH-BENARD CONVECTION .2. DIMENSION CONSIDERATIONS

A study is made of the number of dimensions needed to specify chaotic Rayleigh-Benard convection, over a range of Rayleigh numbers (gamma = Ra/Ra(c) < 10(2)). This is based on the calculation of Lyapunov dimension over the range, as well as the notion of Karhunen-Loeve dimension. An argument suggesting a universal relation between these estimates and supporting numerical evidence is presented. Numerical evidence is also presented that the reciprocal of the largest Lyapunov exponent and the correlation time are of the same order of magnitude. Several other universal features are suggested. In particular it is suggested that the intrinsic attractor dimension is O(Ra2/3), which is sharper than previous results.