Onset of Surface-Tension-Driven Bénard Convection

Experiments with shadowgraph visualization reveal a subcritical transition to a hexagonal convection pattern in thin liquid layers that have a free upper surface and are heated from below. The measured critical Marangoni number (84) and observation of hysteresis ( $3\%$) agree with theory. In some experiments, imperfect bifurcation is observed and is attributed to deterministic forcing caused in part by the lateral boundaries in the experiment.