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research article

Local and global bifurcations to large-scale oblique patterns in inclined layer convection

Zheng, Zheng
•
Azimi, Sajjad  
•
Reetz, Florian  
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May 25, 2026
Journal of Fluid Mechanics

In the inclined layer convection system, thermal convection in a Rayleigh–Bénard cell tilted against gravity, the flow is subject to competing buoyancy and shear forces. For varying inclination angle ( $\gamma$ ) and Rayleigh number ( $ \textit{Ra}$ ), a variety of spatio-temporal patterns is observed. We investigate the switching diamond panes (SDP) pattern, observed at $(\gamma , \textit{Ra})\simeq (100^\circ ,10,000)$ , which exhibits large-scale oblique features and is one of the five complex tertiary patterns at Prandtl number $ \textit{Pr}=1.07$ . First, we study the linear instability of the secondary-state transverse convection rolls and the five branches including two travelling waves and three periodic orbits, bifurcating simultaneously from it. These non-generic bifurcations arise from the breaking of specific spatial symmetries of transverse rolls, and the resulting bifurcated solutions show large-scale diamond-shaped amplitude modulations. Second, we explore a periodic orbit that captures both the large-scale structure and small-scale defects of modulated rolls. Parametric continuation in $ \textit{Ra}$ reveals the global homoclinic bifurcation via which this periodic orbit emerges. Third, the edge states between two dynamically relevant periodic orbits have been computed. Specifically, additional steady and time-periodic solutions are identified on the basin boundary and their bifurcation structures are analysed. Together, using nonlinear invariant solutions and their bifurcations, we take a further step toward understanding the emergence and dynamics of SDP far from the onset of convection, where linear methods have not been applied successfully.

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Type
research article
DOI
10.1017/jfm.2026.11487
Author(s)
Zheng, Zheng

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Azimi, Sajjad  

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Reetz, Florian  

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Schneider, Tobias M.  

École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

Date Issued

2026-05-25

Publisher

Cambridge University Press (CUP)

Published in
Journal of Fluid Mechanics
Volume

1035

Article Number

A36

Editorial or Peer reviewed

REVIEWED

Written at

EPFL

EPFL units
ECPS  
FunderFunding(s)Grant NumberGrant URL

European Research Council

865677

Available on Infoscience
May 26, 2026
Use this identifier to reference this record
https://infoscience.epfl.ch/handle/20.500.14299/263864
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