  A theory of the novel spiral chaos state recently observed in Rayleigh-Benard
convection is proposed in terms of the importance of invasive defects i.e
defects that through their intrinsic dynamics expand to take over the system.
The motion of the spiral defects is shown to be dominated by wave vector
frustration, rather than a rotational motion driven by a vertical vorticity
field. This leads to a continuum of spiral frequencies, and a spiral may rotate
in either sense depending on the wave vector of its local environment. Results
of extensive numerical work on equations modelling the convection system
provide some confirmation of these ideas.
