Fig. 1: Formation and structure of active-rotor-induced turbulent states.

a A schematic diagram showing CCW (red) and CW (blue) phases separated by an interfacial region (orange) of width ϵ; b an illustrative pseudocolor plot of ω in the active-rotor-induced turbulent NESS with vortex doublets [shown enlarged in (c)]; pseudocolor plots of ω for d τ = 0.5, e τ = 1.5, f τ = 4, and g τ = 5, with corresponding pseudocolor plots for ϕ in (h–k), respectively, at representative times, showing partial phase separation at low values of τ and turbulent NESSs, with ω ∝ ϕ, at large values of τ. As τ increases, the number of vortex doublets rises, but their sizes decrease. For the full spatiotemporal evolution of these fields, see Supplementary Movies 1–4.