Effect of the Centrifugal Force on Domain Chaos in Rayleigh-B\'enard convection

Abstract

Experiments and simulations from a variety of sample sizes indicated that the centrifugal force significantly affects rotating Rayleigh-B\'enard convection-patterns. In a large-aspect-ratio sample, we observed a hybrid state consisting of domain chaos close to the sample center, surrounded by an annulus of nearly-stationary nearly-radial rolls populated by occasional defects reminiscent of undulation chaos. Although the Coriolis force is responsible for domain chaos, by comparing experiment and simulation we show that the centrifugal force is responsible for the radial rolls. Furthermore, simulations of the Boussinesq equations for smaller aspect ratios neglecting the centrifugal force yielded a domain precession-frequency $f\sim\epsilon^\mu$ with $\mu\simeq1$ as predicted by the amplitude-equation model for domain chaos, but contradicted by previous experiment. Additionally the simulations gave a domain size that was larger than in the experiment. When the centrifugal force was included in the simulation, $\mu$ and the domain size closely agreed with experiment.