Experimental evidence for standing waves resulting from a supercritical Hopf bifurcation that appears as the first pattern-forming instability in counterrotating Taylor-Couette flow is presented. Depending on the aspect ratio two different types of standing waves, denoted as SW0 and SW(pi), could be observed. Both modes have an azimuthal wave number m=1 but differ in symmetry. While for SW(pi), a spatiotemporal glide-reflection symmetry could be found, SW0 is purely spatial reflection symmetric. The transition between the two modes is found to be organized in a cusp bifurcation unfolded by variations of the aspect ratio. The "classical" spiral vortex flow appears in this control parameter regime only as a result of a secondary steady bifurcation from SW0. This transition is found to be either subcritical or supercritical. The experimentally observed bifurcation structure has been predicted by theory of Hopf bifurcation to spiral vortex flow in finite counterrotating Taylor-Couette systems.

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Results of an experimental study of a Hopf bifurcation with broken translation symmetry that organizes chaotic homoclinic dynamics from a T2 torus in a fluid flow as a direct consequence of physical boundaries are presented. It is shown that the central features of the theory of Hopf bifurcation in O(2)-symmetric systems where the translation symmetry is broken are robust and are appropriate to describe the appearance of modulated waves, homoclinic bifurcation, Takens-Bogdanov point, and chaotic dynamics in a fluid flow experiment.

The results of an experimental study on the bifurcation structure of oscillatory modes in counterrotating Taylor–Couette flow with stationary end plates are presented. It is shown that the cylinder length L acts as an important geometric control parameter of the system. As a result of a supercritical Hopf bifurcation it is found that for an aspect ratio Γ=L/d>16 (d gap width) only spiral vortices appear in basic laminar flow. For Γ<10.5 spiral vortices are almost entirely replaced by two types of standing waves called SW0 and SWπ as supercritical oscillatory flow. Experimental evidence is presented that the mode exchange between standing waves SW0 and SWπ is governed by underlying Ekman induced vortices which appear as a result of stationary end plates in the flow. In this regime spiral vortices appear only from a sub- or supercritical symmetry breaking bifurcation of the standing waves. Within an “intermediate regime” between 10.5⩽Γ⩽16 spiral vortices are found to be the predominant primary oscillatory flow but small stability intervals of standing waves are also observed. Surprisingly, the experimentally determined critical Reynolds number is found to deviate not more than 2% from the numerical values for all values of aspect ratio even though they are calculated under the assumption of infinite axial length. Moreover, the critical oscillation frequency is also in agreement with the numerical values and is independent from Γ.

We present the results of an experimental study on the transition to spiral vortices in flow between concentric counter-rotating cylinders in the presence of an axial through-flow, i.e., in spiral Poiseuille flow. The experiments were performed in an apparatus having an aspect ratio Gamma=L/d=22.8 ( L axial length, d gap width between cylinders) and end plates enabling an in and outflow of mass. As a result of an applied axial through-flow the "classical" Hopf bifurcation to spiral vortices (SPI) splits up and a primary and secondary branch of down and upstream propagating SPI, respectively, as well as a transient quasiperiodic flow appear. Downstream propagating SPI resulting from the primary supercritical Hopf bifurcation are either convectively or absolutely unstable. The bifurcation structure observed in this open flow experiment is in qualitative agreement with predictions from theory of Hopf bifurcation with broken reflection symmetry [J. D. Crawford and E. Knobloch, Nonlinearity 1, 617 (1988)] and also in quantitative agreement with results from recent numerical calculations [A. Pinter, M. Lücke, and C. Hoffmann, Phys. Rev. E 67, 026318 (2003); C. Hoffmann, M. Lücke, and A. Pinter, Phys. Rev. E 69, 056309 (2004)].