FROM SOLITARY WAVES TO STATIC PATTERNS VIA SPATIOTEMPORAL INTERMITTENCY

Among the very rich range of possibilities for the dynamics of one dim ensional 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 situ ations, a regime of colliding solitary waves exhibiting chaos with spa tiotemporal intermittency is observed. These observations suggest the description of the static periodic pattern as being the result of a de nse packing of propagating solitary waves, and its destabilization to spatiotemporal intermittency as the attempt of some solitary waves to propagate.