Subcritical instabilities in a convective fluid layer under a quasi-one-dimensional heating

The study and characterization of the diversity of spatiotemporal patterns generated when a rectangular layer of fluid is locally heated beneath its free surface is presented. We focus on the instability of a stationary cellular pattern of wave number k_s which undergoes a globally subcritical transition to traveling waves by parity-breaking symmetry. The experimental results show how the emerging traveling mode (2k_s∕3) switches on a resonant triad (k_s,k_s∕2,2k_s∕3) within the cellular pattern yielding a “mixed” pattern. The nature of this transition is described quantitatively in terms of the evolution of the fundamental modes by complex demodulation techniques. The Bénard-Marangoni convection accounts for the different dynamics depending on the depth of the fluid layer and on the vertical temperature difference. The existence of a hysteresis cycle has been evaluated quantitatively. When the bifurcation to traveling waves is measured in the vicinity of the codimension-2 bifurcation point, we measure a decrease of the subcritical interval in which the traveling mode becomes unstable. From the traveling wave state the system undergoes a global secondary bifurcation to an alternating pattern which doubles the wavelength (k_s∕2) of the primary cellular pattern; this result compares well with theoretical predictions [ P. Coullet and G. Iooss Phys. Rev. Lett. 64 866 (1990)]. In this cascade of bifurcations towards a defect dynamics, bistability due to the subcritical behavior of our system is the reason for the coexistence of two different modulated patterns connected by a front. These fronts are stationary for a finite interval of the control parameters.