Melting of a nonequilibrium vortex crystal in a fluid film with polymers: Elastic versus fluid turbulence

We perform a direct numerical simulation of the forced, incompressible two-dimensional Navier-Stokes equation coupled with the FENE-P equations for the polymer-conformation tensor. The forcing is such that, without polymers and at low Reynolds numbers Re, the film attains a steady state that is a square lattice of vortices and antivortices. We find that, as we increase the Weissenberg number Wi, a sequence of nonequilibrium phase transitions transforms this lattice, first to spatially distorted, but temporally steady, crystals and then to a sequence of crystals that oscillate in time, periodically, at low Wi, and quasiperiodically, for slightly larger Wi. Finally, the system becomes disordered and displays spatiotemporal chaos and elastic turbulence. We then obtain the nonequilibrium phase diagram for this system, in the Wi-Ω plane, where Ω∝Re, and show that (a) the boundary between the crystalline and turbulent phases has a complicated, fractal-type character and (b) the Okubo-Weiss parameter Λ provides us with a natural measure for characterizing the phases and transitions in this diagram