Finite-size effects lead to supercritical bifurcations in turbulent rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection

Abstract

In turbulent thermal convection in cylindrical samples of aspect ratio Γ= D/L (D is the diameter and L the height) the Nusselt number Nu is enhanced when the sample is rotated about its vertical axis, because of the formation of Ekman vortices that extract additional fluid out of thermal boundary layers at the top and bottom. We show from experiments and direct numerical simulations that the enhancement occurs only above a bifurcation point at a critical inverse Rossby number $1/\Ro_c$, with $1/\Ro_c \propto 1/Γ$. We present a Ginzburg-Landau like model that explains the existence of a bifurcation at finite $1/\Ro_c$ as a finite-size effect. The model yields the proportionality between $1/\Ro_c$ and $1/\Gamma$ and is consistent with several other measured or computed system properties.

4 pages, 4 figures

References in corpus (2)

• Generation of magnetic field by dynamo action in a turbulent flow of liquid sodium
• Bistability and hysteresis of dipolar dynamos generated by turbulent convection in rotating spherical shells

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