The measurement of subcritical electroconvection

Under idealized conditions, electroconvection in a nematic liquid crystal sets in at a well-defined threshold of the driving ac voltage. Fluctuating convection rolls of a small amplitude below that threshold have been observed recently. The measurement of the amplitude of these fluctuations is described in detail in this paper. It is based on averaging the light intensity signals using the structure function and a quantitative analysis of the light deflection.     

Irreducibility and Mixed Boundary Conditions

In this paper we consider positive semigroups on L^p(Ω) generated by elliptic operators A subject to mixed Dirichlet-Neumann boundary conditions on non-smooth domains Ω. We show in particular that these semigroups as well as those generated by multiplicative perturbations bA of A are irreducible, provided b ∈ L^∞(Ω) is real and satisfies b ≥ δ for some δ > 0. In memoriam Helmut H. Schaefer     

Period tripling causes rotating spirals in agitated wet granular layers

Pattern formation of a thin layer of vertically agitated wet granular matter is investigated experimentally. Rotating spirals with three arms, which correspond to the kinks between regions with different colliding phases, are the dominating pattern. This preferred number of arms corresponds to period tripling of the agitated granular layer, unlike predominantly subharmonic Faraday crispations in dry granular matter. The chirality of the spatiotemporal pattern corresponds to the rotation direction of the spirals.     

The shadowgraph method in convection experiments

The shadowgraph method is applied to thermal convection experiments and electro-hydrodynamic convection (EHC) in nematic liquid crystals. In both cases convection leads to a spatially periodic field of the refractive index causing a spatially periodic intensity modulation of parallel light passing the cell. Close to the onset of convection the temperature or director field is given by linear stability analysis. Knowing these functions the determination of their amplitudes becomes possible by means of the shadowgraph method. The method is demostrated using various examples of thermal and EHC convection experiments.     

A note on the analytic form of the Kramer sampling theorem

This paper discusses the extension of the Kramer sampling theorem to the case when the kernel is Cauchy analytic in the sampling parameter.