Pattern forming system in the presence of different symmetry-breaking mechanisms

Phys Rev Lett. 2008 Nov 21;101(21):214503. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.214503. Epub 2008 Nov 20.

Abstract

We report experiments on spatially forced inclined layer convection, where the combined effect of the intrinsic symmetry breaking due to a gravity-induced shear flow and spatially periodic 1D forcing is studied. We observed pattern selection processes resulting in stabilization of spatiotemporal chaos and the emergence of novel two-dimensional states. Phase diagrams depicting the different observed states for typical forcing scenarios are presented. Convection in the weakly nonlinear regime is compared with theory, and a good agreement is found.