Localized and “Blinking” Traveling Wave Patterns in a Convective Binary Mixture

Abstract

Travelling Waves (TW) in convective binary mixtures provide a paradigm to study one-dimensional patterns in a case of Hopf bifurcation. Great interest in this system, in both theory and experiment, was aroused due to advantages to perform a well-controlled experiment and the relative simplicity of theoretical models. Both these factors permit conducting quantitative comparison of experimental and theoretical results. The large variety of TW patterns observed allows to investigate different aspects of nonlinear spatio-temporal dynamics, namely, translation, reflection of waves at lateral walls, nonlinearity, dispersion, wave interaction. Although looking intricate this pattern selection can be followed now in great detail, and many of its aspects are explained theoretically. Three types of weakly nonlinear TW patterns, namely, nonlinear counter-propagating waves (CPW), spatio-temporally modulated (“blinking”) TW and spatially modulated TW (confined, or localized), their properties and corresponding theoretical models are discussed.