Transient Localized States in 2d Binary Liquid Convection
Kristina Lerman, Eberhard Bodenschatz, David S. Cannell and Guenter Ahlers
Department of Physics
University of California
Santa Barbara, CA 93106
Abstract
We report an experimental study of the onset of convection in ethanol-water
mixtures confined in a circular cell of radial aspect ratio 11.6. The
initial bifurcation
was to radial traveling waves; however, the linear state typically
gave way to a
nonlinear one in which convection alternately focused along one cell
diameter and
then another roughly perpendicular to the rst. After a number of cycles,
this state
frequently collapsed to a localized pulse of traveling-wave convection
very similar to
those observed in 1d geometries. The pulses we observed either decayed
back to pure
conduction or grew to fi ll or nearly fi ll the cell.
(Full paper)