Microscopic coupling of convective modes in a fluid

Abstract

The molecular dynamics method and formalism developed to study the response of a fluid to a single convective external field are extended to systems subject to two external fields driving different convective flows. In two dimensions the simulation results obtained show a coupling between the two different k-vector disturbances, and at higher values of the fields we see a spontaneous symmetry breaking in the response. From two antisymmetric external fields the system develops different density harmonics in the x and y directions, and this leads to asymmetry in all system properties.