Mathematical analysis of sideband instabilities with application to Rayleigh-Bénard convection (Q677013)

The author proposes a novel method for the analysis of sideband instabilities of convection rolls in the Rayleigh-Bénard problem with stress-free boundary conditions. In contrast to other methods, the present theory is based on the Lyapunov-Schmidt reduction (LSR) rather than on the spatial center manifold reduction. The key observation is that the spectral problem obtained from linearization at the given steady state can also be reduced by the LSR method to a finite dimensional eigenvalue problem which contains all the necessary information on possible unstable sidebands. The author comes to the following main conclusions: (i) the method provides a simple standard approach to the nonlinear bifurcation problem as well as to the sideband instability theory; (ii) the effects seen in the lower order terms really persist for the full problem; (iii) the method can be to set up a proper functional analytic framework.