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We analyze the reversals of the large-scale flow in Rayleigh-Bénard convection both through particle image velocimetry flow visualization and direct numerical simulations of the underlying Boussinesq equations in a (quasi-) two-dimensional, rectangular geometry of aspect ratio 1. For medium Prandtl number there is a diagonal large-scale convection roll and two smaller secondary rolls in the two remaining corners diagonally opposing each other. These corner-flow rolls play a crucial role for the large-scale wind reversal: They grow in kinetic energy and thus also in size thanks to plume detachments from the boundary layers up to the time that they take over the main, large-scale diagonal flow, thus leading to reversal. The Rayleigh vs Prandtl number space is mapped out. The occurrence of reversals sensitively depends on these parameters.

We experimentally probe the properties of the disordered Bose-Hubbard model using an atomic Bose-Einstein condensate trapped in a 3D disordered optical lattice. Controllable disorder is introduced using a fine-grained optical speckle field with features comparable in size to the lattice spacing along every lattice direction. A precision measurement of the disordering potential is used to compute the single-particle parameters of the system. To constrain theories of the disordered Bose Hubbard model, we have measured the change in condensate fraction as a function of disorder strength for several different ratios of tunneling to interaction energy. We observe disorder-induced, reversible suppression of condensate fraction for superfluid and coexisting superfluid-Mott-insulator phases.

We report an experimental study of the three-dimensional spatial structure of the low-frequency temperature oscillations in a cylindrical Rayleigh-Bénard convection cell. Through simultaneous multipoint temperature measurements it is found that, contrary to the popular scenario, thermal plumes are emitted neither periodically nor alternately, but randomly and continuously, from the top and bottom plates. We further identify a new flow mode-the sloshing mode of the large-scale circulation (LSC). This sloshing mode, together with the torsional mode of the LSC, are found to be the origin of the oscillation of the temperature field.

Statistical properties of the temperature field in turbulent convection are studied experimentally. We show that the skewness of the plus and minus temperature increments can be used to quantitatively characterize the mixing zone in the convective flow and the result reveals how the mixing zone evolves with the Rayleigh number. We also present evidence for the saturation of the temperature structure function exponent and that the saturation is related to thermal plumes. A more direct study of the thermal plumes suggests that their sizes have a distribution that is approximately log-normal.

We report Nusselt number measurements from high Prandtl number turbulent thermal convection experiments. The experiments are conducted in four fluids with the Prandtl number Pr varying from 4 to 1350 and the Rayleigh number Ra from 2x10(7) to 3x10(10), all in a single convection cell of unity aspect ratio. We find that the measured Nusselt number decreased about 20% over the range of Pr spanned in the experiment. The measure data are also found in good agreement with the prediction of a recent theory over the extended range of Pr covered in the experiment.

We report the scaling properties of temperature in turbulent convection in water. In the central region of the convection cell, we find that the peak frequency of the temperature dissipation spectra may be identified as the "Bolgiano frequency," with respect to which the temperature power spectra are universal functions; and that the usual inertial range is taken up entirely by the buoyancy subrange, so that a "high frequency" scaling subrange emerges only through an extended-self-similarity-type analysis. Moreover, the buoyancy subrange assumes the value of 2/5 predicted for the Bolgiano-Obukhov scaling only in the central region of the cell; in the mixing zone the exponent for the high frequency scaling exponent has a value of 2/3.