An isothermal layer suspended from a surface is gravitationally (Rayleigh-Taylor) unstable. We find that, when a vertical temperature difference $\Delta T$ above a critical value $(\Delta T{)}_c$ is imposed across the liquid-gas layer system (heated from below), the restoring force provided by the temperature-dependent surface tension (thermocapillarity) can stabilize the layer. Our measurements of the most unstable wave number for $\Delta T<\mathrm{}(\Delta T{)}_c$ agree well with our linear stability analysis. The instability occurs at long wavelengths: the most unstable wavelength at $(\Delta T{)}_c$ is infinite.

We find that tracer material can be concentrated into invariant regions of flows due exclusively to transient effects, as are produced when tracers temporarily become more buoyant than the surrounding fluid. This can occur either as a single event, e.g., if the tracer is initially weakly buoyant, or under periodic forcing, e.g., when external effects (such as solar heating) change the tracer density periodically. We study both cases in experiments, in a model, and in direct numerical simulations of laminar flow in a stirred tank. Focusing occurs for very small tracer size and inertia in flows that are instantaneously strictly volume conserving.

We describe the direct observation of deforming water drops in oil undergoing shear flow in a horizontal annular Couette cell. The drops assume a wide variety of highly reproducible structures depending on drop size, rotation speed, and flow history. These structures include toroidal rings of water around the rotating shaft and water sheaths, which, depending on experimental conditions, can either expand to press against the inner walls of the outer stationary cylinder or contract to hug the outside of the rotating shaft.

A Comment on the Letter by Y. Nahmad-Malinari, C. A. Arancibia-Bulnes, and J. C. Ruiz-Suárez Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 727 (1999).

The self-guiding of femtosecond laser pulses in air is investigated. For powers close to the threshold for self-focusing, we show that the balance between the nonlinear focusing of the beam and its defocusing by multiphoton sources produces a new kind of solitonlike structure. Over considerably long distances, the radial profile of the pulse relaxes to a steady-state shape, whereas its temporal profile shrinks along propagation. The influence of the normal group-velocity dispersion is finally discussed.

We show that hyperscaling and finite-size scaling imply that the probability distribution of the order parameter in finite-size critical systems exhibit data collapse. We consider the examples of equilibrium critical systems, and a statistical model of ecology. We propose an explanation for recent observations that the probability distribution of turbulent power fluctuations in closed flows is the same as that of the harmonic 2DXY model.

We report on a microwave cavity experiment where exceptional points (EPs), which are square root singularities of the eigenvalues as function of a complex interaction parameter, are encircled in the laboratory. The real and imaginary parts of an eigenvalue are given by the frequency and width of a resonance and the eigenvectors by the field distributions. Repulsion of eigenvalues—always associated with EPs—implies frequency anticrossing (crossing) whenever width crossing (anticrossing) is present. The eigenvalues and eigenvectors are interchanged while encircling an EP, but one of the eigenvectors undergoes a sign change which can be discerned in the field patterns.

Homoclinic chaos is characterized by regular geometric orbits occurring at erratic times. Phase synchronization at the average repetition frequency is achieved by a tiny periodic modulation of a control parameter. An experiment has been carried on a ${\mathrm{CO}}_2$ laser with feedback, set in a parameter range where homoclinic chaos occurs. Any offset of the modulation frequency from the average induces phase slips over long times. Perfect phase synchronization is recovered by slow changes of the modulation frequency based upon the sign and amplitude of the slip rate. Satellite synchronization regimes are also realized, with variable numbers of homoclinic spikes per period of the modulation.

We present experimental and numerical investigations of the dynamics of two device-identical, optically coupled semiconductor lasers exhibiting a delay in the coupling. Our results give evidence for subnanosecond coupling-induced synchronized chaotic dynamics in conjunction with a spontaneous symmetry-breaking: we find a well-defined time lag between the dynamics of the two lasers, and an asymmetric physical role of the subsystems. We demonstrate that the leading laser synchronizes its lagging counterpart, whereas the synchronized lagging laser drives the coupling-induced instabilities.

We report on new fundamental phenomena in soliton interactions: delayed-action interaction and “spin”-orbit coupling upon collision between two-dimensional composite solitons carrying topological charges.

We study the boundary conditions at a fluid-solid interface using molecular dynamics simulations covering a broad range of fluid-solid interactions and fluid densities and both simple and chain-molecule fluids. The slip length is shown to be independent of the type of flow, but rather is related to the fluid organization near the solid, as governed by the fluid-solid molecular interactions.

We study the stability of almost homoclinic homogeneous limit cycles with respect to spatiotemporal perturbations. It is shown that they are generically unstable. The instability is either the phase instability or a finite wavelength period doubling instability.

We prove that it is possible to freeze a light pulse (i.e., to bring it to a full stop) or even to make its group velocity negative in a coherently driven Doppler broadened atomic medium via electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). This remarkable phenomenon of the ultraslow EIT polariton is based on the spatial dispersion of the refraction index $n(\omega ,k)$, i.e., its wave number dependence, which is due to atomic motion and provides a negative contribution to the group velocity. This is related to, but qualitatively different from, the recently observed light slowing caused by large temporal (frequency) dispersion.

We present results of fully nonlinear time-dependent simulations of a thin liquid film flowing down an inclined plane. Within the lubrication approximation, and assuming complete wetting, we find that varying the inclination angle considerably modifies the shape of the emerging patterns (fingers versus sawtooth). Our results strongly suggest that the shape of the patterns is not necessarily related to either partial or complete coverage of the substrate, a technologically important feature of the flow. We find quantitative agreement with reported experiments and suggest new ones.

A technique for the measurement of attosecond, extreme-ultraviolet pulses is proposed and theoretically analyzed that is based on cross correlation of the attosecond pulse with a strong laser pulse in a gas target. Pulse durations on the time scale of a fraction of the optical period can be resolved. The method is linear in the extreme-ultraviolet intensity, which ensures high efficiency and applicability for wavelengths to below 10 nm.

We describe a classical nonlinear optical system that displays superfluidity and its breakdown. The system consists of a self-defocusing refractive medium inside a Fabry-Pérot cavity with a cylindrical obstacle. We have numerically solved for the transmitted beam when an incident plane wave strikes the cavity at an oblique angle. The presence of the incident beam pins the steady-state phase of the output, preventing the formation of vortices or time-dependent flow. When the incident beam is switched off, a transient wake of moving optical vortices is produced. This is analogous to the breakdown of superfluidity above a critical velocity.

We present self-trapped necklace-ring beams that carry and conserve angular momentum. Such beams can have a fractional ratio of angular momentum to energy, and they exhibit a series of phenomena typically associated with rotation of rigid bodies and centrifugal force effects.

A general link between geometry and intermittency in passive scalar turbulence is established. The anomalous part of the scalar correlation functions is shown to be dominated by special functions of particle configurations. Their major property is that those functions calculated along the particle trajectories remain statistically constant in time. Those conservation laws qualitatively imply the persistence of scalar particles in strongly clustered geometries.

The evolution of the isolated domains of a bifurcated structure in a subcritical state is experimentally studied along the hysteresis branch, up to the critical point at which a chaotic regime is found to develop. The width of the domains is unstable and the fronts dynamics exhibit a cascade of bifurcations as the constraint increases. The chaotic regime is initiated by a splitting of the isolated domains, controlled by a width-selection mechanism. Most of these results are qualitatively reproduced in a fifth-order Ginzburg-Landau model.

We propose a picture of Wigner function scars as a sequence of concentric rings along a two-dimensional surface inside a periodic orbit. This is verified for a two-dimensional plane that contains a classical hyperbolic orbit of a Hamiltonian system with 2 degrees of freedom. The stationary wave functions are the familiar mixture of scarred and random waves, but the spectral average of the Wigner functions in part of the plane is nearly that of a harmonic oscillator and individual states are also remarkably regular. These results are interpreted in terms of the semiclassical picture of chords and centers.