Pattern Formation And Solitons

As is known, a solitary pulse in the complex cubic Ginzburg-Landau (GL) equation is unstable. We demonstrate that a system of two linearly coupled GL equations with gain and dissipation in one subsystem and pure dissipation in another produces absolutely stable solitons and their bound states. The problem is solved in a fully analytical form by means of the perturbation theory. The soliton coexists with a stable trivial state; there is also an unstable soliton with a smaller amplitude, which is a separatrix between the two stable states. This model has a direct application in nonlinear fiber optics, describing an Erbium-doped laser based on a dual-core fiber.

We re-examine the procedure of adiabatic elimination of fast relaxing variables near a bifurcation point when some of the parameters of the system are stochastically modulated. Approximate stationary solutions of the Fokker-Planck equation are obtained near threshold for the pitchfork and transcritical bifurcations. Stochastic resonance between fast variables and random modulation may shift the effective bifurcation point by an amount proportional to the intensity of the fluctuations. We also find that fluctuations of the fast variables above threshold are not always Gaussian and centered around the (deterministic) center manifold as was previously believed. Numerical solutions obtained for a few illustrative examples support these conclusions.

We study the formation of spot patterns seen in a variety of bacterial species when the bacteria are subjected to oxidative stress due to hazardous byproducts of respiration. Our approach consists of coupling the cell density field to a chemoattractant concentration as well as to nutrient and waste fields. The latter serves as a triggering field for emission of chemoattractant. Important elements in the proposed model include the propagation of a front of motile bacteria radially outward form an initial site, a Turing instability of the uniformly dense state and a reduction of motility for cells sufficiently far behind the front. The wide variety of patterns seen in the experiments is explained as being due the variation of the details of the initiation of the chemoattractant emission as well as the transition to a non-motile phase.

We consider the development of instabilities of homogeneous stationary solutions of discrete time lattice maps. Under some generic hypothesis we derive an amplitude equation which is the space-time continuous Ginzburg-Landau equation. Using dynamical renormalization group methods we control the accuracy of this approximation in a large ball of its basin of attraction.

The amplitude equation for an unstable electrostatic wave is analyzed using an expansion in the mode amplitude A(t) . In the limit of weak instability, i.e. γ→ 0 + where γ is the linear growth rate, the nonlinear coefficients are singular and their singularities predict the dependence of A(t) on γ . Generically the scaling |A(t)|= γ 5/2 r(γt) as γ→ 0 + is required to cancel the coefficient singularities to all orders. This result predicts the electric field scaling | E k |∼ γ 5/2 will hold universally for these instabilities (including beam-plasma and two-stream configurations) throughout the dynamical evolution and in the time-asymptotic state. In exceptional cases, such as infinitely massive ions, the coefficients are less singular and the more familiar trapping scaling | E k |∼ γ 2 is recovered.

We analyze the nonlinear dynamics near the incoherent state in a mean-field model of coupled oscillators. The population is described by a Fokker-Planck equation for the distribution of phases, and we apply center-manifold reduction to obtain the amplitude equations for steady-state and Hopf bifurcation from the equilibrium state with a uniform phase distribution. When the population is described by a native frequency distribution that is reflection-symmetric about zero, the problem has circular symmetry. In the limit of zero extrinsic noise, although the critical eigenvalues are embedded in the continuous spectrum, the nonlinear coefficients in the amplitude equation remain finite in contrast to the singular behavior found in similar instabilities described by the Vlasov-Poisson equation. For a bimodal reflection-symmetric distribution, both types of bifurcation are possible and they coincide at a codimension-two Takens Bogdanov point. The steady-state bifurcation may be supercritical or subcritical and produces a time-independent synchronized state. The Hopf bifurcation produces both supercritical stable standing waves and supercritical unstable travelling waves. Previous work on the Hopf bifurcation in a bimodal population by Bonilla, Neu, and Spigler and Okuda and Kuramoto predicted stable travelling waves and stable standing waves, respectively. A comparison to these previous calculations shows that the prediction of stable travelling waves results from a failure to include all unstable modes.

A nonlinear theory of pattern selection in parametric surface waves (Faraday waves) is presented that is not restricted to small viscous dissipation. By using a multiple scale asymptotic expansion near threshold, a standing wave amplitude equation is derived from the governing equations. The amplitude equation is of gradient form, and the coefficients of the associated Lyapunov function are computed for regular patterns of various symmetries as a function of a viscous damping parameter gamma. For gamma approximately 1, the selected wave pattern comprises a single standing wave (stripe pattern). For gamma much less than 1, patterns of square symmetry are obtained in the capillary regime (large frequencies). At lower frequencies (the mixed gravity-capillary regime), a sequence of six-fold (hexagonal), eight-fold,... patterns are predicted. For even lower frequencies (gravity waves) a stripe pattern is again selected. Our predictions of the stability regions of the various patterns are in quantitative agreement with recent experiments conducted in large aspect ratio systems.

We present a systematic nonlinear theory of pattern selection for parametric surface waves (Faraday waves), not restricted to fluids of low viscosity. A standing wave amplitude equation is derived from the Navier-Stokes equations that is of gradient form. The associated Lyapunov function is calculated for different regular patterns to determine the selected pattern near threshold. For fluids of large viscosity, the selected wave pattern consists of parallel stripes. At lower viscosity, patterns of square symmetry are obtained in the capillary regime (large frequencies). At lower frequencies (the mixed gravity-capillary regime), a sequence of six-fold (hexagonal), eight-fold, ... patterns are predicted. The regions of stability of the various patterns are in quantitative agreement with recent experiments conducted in large aspect ratio systems.

We consider the simplest instabilities involving multiple unstable electrostatic plasma waves corresponding to four-dimensional systems of mode amplitude equations. In each case the coupled amplitude equations are derived up to third order terms. The nonlinear coefficients are singular in the limit in which the linear growth rates vanish together. These singularities are analyzed using techniques developed in previous studies of a single unstable wave. In addition to the singularities familiar from the one mode problem, there are new singularities in coefficients coupling the modes. The new singularities are most severe when the two waves have the same linear phase velocity and satisfy the spatial resonance condition k 2 =2 k 1 . As a result the short wave mode saturates at a dramatically smaller amplitude than that predicted for the weak growth rate regime on the basis of single mode theory. In contrast the long wave mode retains the single mode scaling. If these resonance conditions are not satisfied both modes retain their single mode scaling and saturate at comparable amplitudes.

A transversally driven isotropic ferromagnet being under the influence of a static external and an uniaxial internal anisotropy field is studied. We consider the dissipative Landau-Lifshitz equation as the fundamental equation of motion and treat it in 1+1 ~dimensions. The stability of the spatially homogeneous magnetizations against inhomogeneous perturbations is analyzed. Subsequently the dynamics above threshold is described via amplitude equations and the dependence of their coefficients on the physical parameters of the system is determined explicitly. We find soft- and hard-mode instabilities, transitions between sub- and supercritical behaviour, various bifurcations of higher codimension, and present a series of explicit bifurcation diagrams. The analysis of the codimension-2 point where the soft- and hard-mode instabilities coincide leads to a system of two coupled Ginzburg-Landau equations.