Two-Dimensional Infinite Prandtl Number Convection: Structure of Bifurcated Solutions

This paper examines the bifurcation and structure of the bifurcated solutions of the two-dimensional infinite Prandtl number convection problem. The existence of a bifurcation from the trivial solution to an attractor Σ _R was proved by Park (Disc. Cont. Dynam. Syst. B [2005]). We prove in this paper that the bifurcated attractor Σ _R consists of only one cycle of steady-state solutions and that it is homeomorphic to S¹. By thoroughly investigating the structure and transitions of the solutions of the infinite randtl number convection problem in physical space, we confirm that the bifurcated solutions are indeed structurally stable. In turn, this will corroborate and justify the suggested results with the physical findings about the presence of the roll structure. This bifurcation analysis is based on a new notion of bifurcation, called attractor bifurcation, and structural stability is derived using a new geometric theory of incompressible flows. Both theories were developed by Ma and Wang; see Bifurcation Theory and Applications (World Scientific, 2005) and Geometric Theory of Incompressible Flows with Applications to Fluid Dynamics (American Mathematical Society, 2005).