Experimental observation of a nonpitchfork acceleration instability in a nematic liquid crystal

Title data

Müller, Matthias ; Schöpf, Wolfgang ; Rehberg, Ingo:
Experimental observation of a nonpitchfork acceleration instability in a nematic liquid crystal.
In: Physical Review E. Vol. 76 (2007) Issue 4 . - 041704.
ISSN 1550-2376
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.76.041704

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Abstract in another language

The velocity of domain walls caused by a symmetry-breaking instability is experimentally investigated for the case of electroconvection in a nematic liquid crystal. It turns out that the velocity increases linearly with the distance from the bifurcation creating the domains. This scaling behavior does not agree with the drift pitchfork bifurcation. It has, however, been predicted by a minimal model describing our scenario.