
We report experiments on convection driven by a radial electrical force in suspended annular smectic A liquid crystal films. In the absence of an externally imposed azimuthal shear, a stationary one-dimensional (1D) pattern consisting of symmetric vortex pairs is formed via a supercritical transition at the onset of convection. Shearing reduces the symmetries of the base state and produces a traveling 1D pattern whose basic periodic unit is a pair of asymmetric vortices. For a sufficiently large shear, the primary bifurcation changes from supercritical to subcritical. We describe measurements of the resulting hysteresis as a function of the shear at radius ratio $��\sim 0.8$. This simple pattern forming system has an unusual combination of symmetries and control parameters and should be amenable to quantitative theoretical analysis.
12 preprint pages, 3 figures in 2 parts each. For more info, see http://mobydick.physics.utoronto.ca
Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn), Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), FOS: Physical sciences, Physics - Fluid Dynamics, Pattern Formation and Solitons (nlin.PS), Condensed Matter - Soft Condensed Matter, Nonlinear Sciences - Pattern Formation and Solitons
Fluid Dynamics (physics.flu-dyn), Soft Condensed Matter (cond-mat.soft), FOS: Physical sciences, Physics - Fluid Dynamics, Pattern Formation and Solitons (nlin.PS), Condensed Matter - Soft Condensed Matter, Nonlinear Sciences - Pattern Formation and Solitons
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