title: Blue sky catastrophe in double-diffusive convection.
abstract: A global bifurcation of the blue sky catastrophe type has been found in a small Prandtl number binary mixture contained in a laterally heated cavity. The system has been studied numerically applying the tools of bifurcation theory. The catastrophe corresponds to the destruction of an orbit which, for a large range of Rayleigh numbers, is the only stable solution. This orbit is born in a global saddle-loop bifurcation and becomes chaotic in a period-doubling cascade just before its disappearance at the blue sky catastrophe.
authors.affiliation: Departament de Física Aplicada, Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya, Jordi Girona 1-3, E-08034 Barcelona, Spain. esteban@fa.upc.es
authors.forename: Esteban
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Meca
authors.forename: Isabel
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Mercader
authors.forename: Oriol
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Batiste
authors.forename: Laureano
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Ramírez-Piscina