Convection in rotating annuli: Ginzburg-Landau equations with tunable coefficients

Abstract

The coefficients of the complex Ginzburg-Landau equations that describe weakly nonlinear convection in a large rotating annulus are calculated for a range of Prandtl numbers $σ$. For fluids with $σ\approx 0.15$, we show that the rotation rate can tune the coefficients of the corresponding amplitude equations from regimes where coherent patterns prevail to regimes of spatio-temporal chaos.