Canard explosions in turbulent thermo-fluid systems.

A sudden transition to a state of high-amplitude periodic oscillations is catastrophic in a thermo-fluid system. Conventionally, upon varying the control parameter, a sudden transition is observed as an abrupt jump in the amplitude of the fluctuations in these systems. In contrast, we present an experimental discovery of a canard explosion in a turbulent reactive flow system where we observe a continuous bifurcation with a rapid rise in the amplitude of the fluctuations within a narrow range of control parameters.