Competition between Spiral-Defect Chaos and Rolls in Rayleigh-Benard Convection
patt-sol
2009-10-30 v1 Pattern Formation and Solitons
Abstract
We present experimental results for pattern formation in Rayleigh-Benard convection of a fluid with a Prandtl number, Pr~ 4. We find that the spiral-defect-chaos (SDC) attractor which exists for Pr~1 has become unstable. Gradually increasing the temperature difference from below to well above its critical value no longer leads to SDC. A sudden jump of temperature difference from below to above onset causes convection to grow from thermal fluctuations and does yield SDC. However, the SDC is a transient; it coarsens and forms a single cell-filling spiral which then drifts toward the cell wall and disappears.
Cite
@article{arxiv.patt-sol/9702004,
title = {Competition between Spiral-Defect Chaos and Rolls in Rayleigh-Benard Convection},
author = {Kapil M. S. Bajaj and David S. Cannell and Guenter Ahlers},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:patt-sol/9702004},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
9 pages(RevTeX), 5 jpg figures, To appear as Rapid Communication in PRE