Forced Symmetry Breaking as a Mechanism for Bursting

Abstract
A robust mechanism generating regular or irregular bursts of large dynamic range near threshold is described. The mechanism arises in the interaction between oscillatory modes of odd and even parity in systems of large but finite aspect ratio, and provides an explanation for the bursting behavior observed in binary fluid convection by Sullivan and Ahlers [Phys. Rev. A 38, 3143 (1988)].