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Multiple Front Propagation into Unstable States

Montagne, R.; Amengual, A.; Hernández-García, E.; San Miguel, M.
Physical Review E 50, 377-385 (1994)

The dynamics of transient patterns formed by front propagation in extended nonequilibrium systems is considered. Under certain circumstances, the state left behind a front propagating into an unstable homogeneous state can be an unstable periodic pattern. It is found by a numerical solution of a model of the Fréedericksz transition in nematic liquid crystals that the mechanism of decay of such periodic unstable states is the propagation of a second front which replaces the unstable pattern by another unstable periodic state with a larger wavelength. The speed of this second front and the periodicity of the new state are analytically calculated with a generalization of the marginal stability formalism suited to the study of front propagation into periodic unstable states.

Link to the paper at Los Alamos preprint server (now arXiv): http://arxiv.org/abs/patt-sol/9312001