Hyperbolicity and the Effective Dimension of Spatially Extended Dissipative Systems

Using covariant Lyapunov vectors, we reveal a split of the tangent space of standard models of one-dimensional dissipative spatiotemporal chaos: A finite extensive set of N dynamically entangled vectors with frequent common tangencies describes all of the physically relevant dynamics and is hyperbolically separated from possibly infinitely many isolated modes representing trivial, exponentially decaying perturbations. We argue that N can be interpreted as the number of effective degrees of freedom, which has to be taken into account in numerical integration and control issues.