The role of thermodiffusive generation of concentration fluctuations via the Soret effect, their contribution to the buoyancy forces that drive convection, the advective mixing effect of the latter, and the diffusive homogenisation are compared and elucidated for oscillatory convection. Numer-

Oscillatory solution branches of the hydrodynamic field equations describing convection in the form of a standing wave (SW) in binary fluid mixtures heated from below are determined completely for several negative Soret coefficients psi. Galerkin as well as finite-difference simulations were used. They were augmented by simple control methods to obtain also unstable SW states. For sufficiently negative psi, unstable SWs bifurcate subcritically out of the quiescent conductive state. They become stable via a saddle-node bifurcation when lateral phase pinning is exerted. Eventually their invariance under timeshift by half a period combined with reflection at midheight of the fluid layer gets broken. Thereafter, they terminate by undergoing a period-doubling cascade into chaos.

We have investigated the influence of a time-periodic and spatially homogeneous magnetic field on the linear stability properties and on the nonlinear response of a ferrofluid layer heated from below and from above. A competition between stabilizing thermal and viscous diffusion and destabilizing buoyancy and Kelvin forces occurs. Floquet theory is used to determine the stability boundaries of the motionless conductive state for a harmonic and subharmonic response. Full numerical simulations with a finite difference method were made to obtain nonlinear convective states. The effect of low- and high-frequency modulation on the stability boundaries as well as on the nonlinear oscillations that may occur is investigated.

Bifurcation properties, stability behavior, dynamics, and the heat transfer of convection in a horizontal fluid layer that is driven away from thermal equilibrium by imposing a vertical temperature difference are compared with those resulting from imposing a heat current. Similarities and differences are elucidated. In particular various paradigmatic backwards bifurcating convection structures that occur, e.g., in binary fluid mixtures are determined numerically for the two different driving mechanisms. Conditions are given under which current driven convection is stable when temperature driven convection is unstable.