On-Off Intermittency in Stochastically Driven Electrohydrodynamic Convection in Nematics

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Abstract
We report on-off intermittency in electroconvection of nematic liquid crystals driven by a dichotomous stochastic electric voltage. With increasing voltage amplitude we observe laminar phases of undistorted director state interrupted by shorter bursts of spatially regular stripes. Near a critical value of the amplitude the distribution of the duration of laminar phases is governed over several decades by a power law with exponent -3/2. The experimental findings agree with simulations of the linearized electrohydrodynamic equations near the sample stability threshold.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures, minor changes to improve readability for a general audience, to appear in Phys. Rev. Letter