dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaWeakly Nonlinear Analysis of Electroconvection in a Suspended Fluid Film
| Authors | V. B. Deyirmenjian, Zahir A. Daya, Stephen W. Morris |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | patt-sol/9703001 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/patt-sol/9703001 |
| DOI | 10.1103/PhysRevE.56.1706 |
Abstract
It has been experimentally observed that weakly conducting suspended films of smectic liquid crystals undergo electroconvection when subjected to a large enough potential difference. The resulting counter-rotating vortices form a very simple convection pattern and exhibit a variety of interesting nonlinear effects. The linear stability problem for this system has recently been solved. The convection mechanism, which involves charge separation at the free surfaces of the film, is applicable to any sufficiently two-dimensional fluid. In this paper, we derive an amplitude equation which describes the weakly nonlinear regime, by starting from the basic electrohydrodynamic equations. This regime has been the subject of several recent experimental studies. The lowest order amplitude equation we derive is of the Ginzburg-Landau form, and describes a forward bifurcation as is observed experimentally. The coefficients of the amplitude equation are calculated and compared with the values independently deduced from the linear stability calculation.
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"abstract": "It has been experimentally observed that weakly conducting suspended films of\nsmectic liquid crystals undergo electroconvection when subjected to a large\nenough potential difference. The resulting counter-rotating vortices form a\nvery simple convection pattern and exhibit a variety of interesting nonlinear\neffects. The linear stability problem for this system has recently been solved.\nThe convection mechanism, which involves charge separation at the free surfaces\nof the film, is applicable to any sufficiently two-dimensional fluid. In this\npaper, we derive an amplitude equation which describes the weakly nonlinear\nregime, by starting from the basic electrohydrodynamic equations. This regime\nhas been the subject of several recent experimental studies. The lowest order\namplitude equation we derive is of the Ginzburg-Landau form, and describes a\nforward bifurcation as is observed experimentally. The coefficients of the\namplitude equation are calculated and compared with the values independently\ndeduced from the linear stability calculation.",
"arxiv_id": "patt-sol/9703001",
"authors": [
"V. B. Deyirmenjian",
"Zahir A. Daya",
"Stephen W. Morris"
],
"categories": [
"patt-sol",
"nlin.PS"
],
"doi": "10.1103/PhysRevE.56.1706",
"title": "Weakly Nonlinear Analysis of Electroconvection in a Suspended Fluid Film",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/patt-sol/9703001"
},
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