Pattern Formation And Solitons

We describe experiments on B{é}nard-Marangoni convection in horizontal layers of two immiscible liquids. Unlike previous experiments, which used gases as the upper fluid, we find a square planform close to onset which undergoes a secondary bifurcation to rolls at higher temperature differences. The scale of the convection pattern is that of the thinner lower fluid layer for which buoyancy and surface tension forces are comparable. The wavenumber of the pattern near onset agrees with the prediction of the linear stability analysis for the full two-layer problem. The square planform is in qualitative agreement with recent one- and two-layer nonlinear theories, which fail however to predict the transition to rolls.

The existence of bright and dark multi-bump solitary waves for Ginzburg-Landau type perturbations of the cubic-quintic Schrodinger equation is considered. The waves in question are not perturbations of known analytic solitary waves, but instead arise as a bifurcation from a heteroclinic cycle in a three dimensional ODE phase space. Using geometric singular perturbation techniques, regions in parameter space for which 1-bump bright and dark solitary waves will bifurcate are identified. The existence of N-bump dark solitary waves is shown via an application of the Exchange Lemma with Exponentially Small Error. N-bump bright solitary waves are shown to exist as a consequence of the previous work of S. Maier-Paape and this author.

In the optimal velocity model with a time lag, we show that there appear multiple exact solutions in some ranges of car density, describing a uniform flow, a stable and an unstable congested flows. This establishes the presence of subcritical Hopf bifurcations. Our analytic results have far-reaching implications for traffic flows such as hysteresis phenomena associated with discontinuous transitions between uniform and congested flows.

We show the existence of a region in the parameter space that defines the field dynamics in a Fabry-Perot cylindrical cavity, where three output stable stationary states of the light are possible for a given localized incident field. Two of these states do not preserve the bilateral (i.e. left-right) symmetry of the entire system. These broken-symmetry states are the high-transmission nonlinear modes of the system. We also discuss how to excite these states.

The common description of the electrical behavior of a nematic liquid crystal as an anisotropic dielectric medium with (weak) ohmic conductivity is extended to an electrodiffusion model with two active ionic species. Under appropriate, but rather general conditions the additional effects can lead to a distinctive change of the threshold behavior of the electrohydrodynamic instability, namely to travelling patterns instead of static ones. This may explain the experimentally observed phenomena.

The appearence of a new type of fast nonlinear traveling wave states in binary fluid convection with increasing Soret effect is elucidated and the parameter range of their bistability with the common slower ones is evaluated numerically. The bifurcation behavior and the significantly different spatiotemporal properties of the different wave states - e.g. frequency, flow structure, and concentration distribution - are determined and related to each other and to a convenient measure of their nonlinearity. This allows to derive a limit for the applicability of small amplitude expansions. Additionally an universal scaling behavior of frequencies and mixing properties is found. PACS: 47.20.-k, 47.10.+g, this http URL

Motivated by the observation of localized traveling-wave states (`pulses') in convection in binary liquid mixtures, the interaction of fronts is investigated in a real Ginzburg-Landau equation which is coupled to a mean field. In that system the Ginzburg-Landau equation describes the traveling-wave amplitude and the mean field corrsponds to a concentration mode which arises due to the slowness of mass diffusion. For single fronts the mean field can lead to a hysteretic transition between slow and fast fronts. Its contribution to the interaction between fronts can be attractive as well as repulsive and depends strongly on their direction of propagation. Thus, the concentration mode leads to a new localization mechanism, which does not require any dispersion in contrast to that operating in the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. Based on this mechanism alone, pairs of fronts in binary-mixture convection are expected to form {\it stable} pulses if they travel {\it backward}, i.e. opposite to the phase velocity. For positive velocities the interaction becomes attractive and destabilizes the pulses. These results are in qualitative agreement with recent experiments. Since the new mechanism is very robust it is expected to be relevant in other systems as well in which a wave is coupled to a mean field.

We report experimental results for a boundary-mediated wavenumber-adjustment mechanism and for a boundary-limited wavenumber-band of Taylor-vortex flow (TVF). The system consists of fluid contained between two concentric cylinders with the inner one rotating at an angular frequency Ω . As observed previously, the Eckhaus instability (a bulk instability) is observed and limits the stable wavenumber band when the system is terminated axially by two rigid, non-rotating plates. The band width is then of order ϵ 1/2 at small ϵ ( ϵ≡Ω/ Ω c −1 ) and agrees well with calculations based on the equations of motion over a wide ϵ -range. When the cylinder axis is vertical and the upper liquid surface is free (i.e. an air-liquid interface), vortices can be generated or expelled at the free surface because there the phase of the structure is only weakly pinned. The band of wavenumbers over which Taylor-vortex flow exists is then more narrow than the stable band limited by the Eckhaus instability. At small ϵ the boundary-mediated band-width is linear in ϵ . These results are qualitatively consistent with theoretical predictions, but to our knowledge a quantitative calculation for TVF with a free surface does not exist.

We have measured the stability boundary for steady electrically-driven convective flow in thin, freely suspended films of Smectic-A liquid crystal. The thinness and layered structure of the films supress two- and three-dimensional instabilities of the convection pattern. As the voltage applied across the film, or the length of the film, is varied, convective vortices are created or destroyed to keep the wave number of the pattern within a stable range. The range of stable wave numbers increases linearly with the dimensionless control parameter ϵ , for small ϵ , and the vortices always appear and disappear at the ends of the film. These results are consistent with a mechanism for boundary-induced wavelength selection proposed by Cross {\it et al.} [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 45}, 898 (1980)].

We study the Boussinesq equation from the point of view of a multiple-time reductive perturbation method. As a consequence of the elimination of the secular producing terms through the use of the Korteweg--de Vries hierarchy, we show that the solitary--wave of the Boussinesq equation is a solitary--wave satisfying simultaneously all equations of the Korteweg--de Vries hierarchy, each one in an appropriate slow time variable.