Nitrogen stars: Morphogenesis of a liquid drop

We report a study of a symmetry-breaking instability which occurs during the free evaporation of liquid nitrogen placed on a concave container initially at room temperature. The system evolves spontaneously from a highly disordered boiling state to one characterized by sequence of well-defined spati...

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Autores principales: Strier, D.E., Duarte, A.A., Ferrari, H., Mindlin, G.B.
Formato: JOUR
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Acceso en línea:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.12110/paper_03784371_v283_n1_p261_Strier
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Sumario:We report a study of a symmetry-breaking instability which occurs during the free evaporation of liquid nitrogen placed on a concave container initially at room temperature. The system evolves spontaneously from a highly disordered boiling state to one characterized by sequence of well-defined spatio-temporal structures. This sequence starts with the formation of a levitating drop. As the evaporation proceeds the drop undergoes an alternation between different star-like-shaped patterns with decreasing number of tips. In addition, each of this patterns oscillates. We frame the observed phenomena within the qualitative theory of bifurcations.