Penta-hepta defect chaos in a model for rotating hexagonal convection

In a model for rotating non-Boussinesq convection, a spatiotemporally chaotic state that is dominated by the dynamics of penta-hepta defects of the underlying hexagon pattern was identified. The defect statistics of this penta-hepta chaos indicate strong correlations between the defects. The origin of the correlations was identified as the induced nucleation of dislocations due to the presence of penta-hepta defects. From the defect statistics, the dependence of the creation and annihilation rates of defects on the defect density was extracted.