Turbulent bursting and spatiotemporal intermittencyin the counterrotating Taylor-Couette system

Turbulent bursting that is intermittent in time and space occurs in the Taylor-Couette system when the cylinders rotate in opposite directions. We show, through an analysis of the turbulent fraction and the size distributions of turbulent and laminar domains, that the Taylor-Couette system behaves differently than previously explored systems exhibiting spatiotemporal intermittency. Finally, we consider the analogy linking spatiotemporal intermittency with second order phase transitions.