Testing the Kibble-Zurek mechanism in Rayleigh-Bénard convection.
We report experimental evidence of the fact that, in an emerging Rayleigh-Bénard structure, the density of defects which appear scales as a power law in the rate of change of the control parameter. The scaling exponents agree with those calculated from the Kibble-Zurek mechanism. This is the first evidence to our knowledge that this mechanism works in a hydrodynamical system.
Casado
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S
Department of Physics and Applied Mathematics, Universidad de Navarra, Irunlarrea s/n, E-31080 Pamplona, Spain.
González-Viñas
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W
Mancini
H
H