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Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
Convection-induced nonlinear symmetry breaking in wave mixing
Roberta Zambrini1, Maxi San Miguel, Céline Durniak
1Department of Physics, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, G4 0NG, United Kingdom.
Abstract:
We show that the combined action of diffraction and convection (walk-off) in wave mixing processes leads to a nonlinear symmetry breaking in the generated traveling waves. The dynamics near to threshold is reduced to a Ginzburg-Landau model, showing an original dependence of the nonlinear self-coupling term on the convection. Analytical expressions of the intensity and velocity of traveling waves emphasize the utmost importance of convection in this phenomenon. These predictions are in excellent agreement with the numerical solutions of the full dynamical model.
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