Frozen fronts in cellular flows

M. E. Schwartz; T. H. Solomon

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arXiv · 0707.4185

Frozen fronts in cellular flows

M. E. Schwartz·T. H. Solomon

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Abstract

We present experiments on the behavior of reaction fronts in ordered and disordered cellular flows with imposed winds. Fronts in a chain of alternating vortices are found to freeze (pin to the separatrix) for a wide range of imposed winds that grows nonlinearly with the characteristic strength of the underlying vorticity. Experiments in spatially-disordered flows demonstrate that freezing of fronts is common to cellular flows; furthermore, it is not dependent on boundary conditions. We therefore anticipate similar pinning in a wide range of cellular flows and front-producing systems.

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M. E. Schwartz, T. H. Solomon. 2007-07-27. Frozen fronts in cellular flows. https://arxiv.org/abs/0707.4185

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