The spectral dynamics of laminar convection

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Abstract
The non-linear equations of the Bénard convection problem are transformed to the spectral domain. The spectral basis consists of the supercritical normal modes of the characteristic-value problem in which the exponential growth rates are characteristic values. The norm of the spectrum is the variance of an arbitrary finite-amplitude state of convection. The equations that govern the spectrum are solvable by linear methods when the spectrum is truncated by exclusion of all convective modes except those of lowest-order symmetric vertical structure. Numerical computations of heat flux for a spectrum that contains only one convective mode are in good agreement with experimental data for water in the laminar régime.