Thursday,
October 27, 2005, 12:15 p.m. GWC 604
Globally Coupled Ginzburg Landau Equations for Electroconvection in Nematic Liquid Crystals
Abstract
For certain materials, the electrohydrodynamic instability leading to convection
in nematic liquid crystals is a Hopf bifurcation with four critical wave numbers.
As a consequence, the linearized problem admits solutions in the form of two
pairs of oblique counterpropagating travelling rolls. To describe this
instability in a weakly nonlinear analysis, a system of four globally coupled
Ginzburg Landau equations is introduced. Analytical and numerical studies of
this system reveal a
rich variety of behaviors, including patterns that resemble the experimentally
observed patterns identified as�spatiotemporal chaos, as well as worm
structures.
For further information please contact:
mittelmann@asu.edu