P. Gondret, P. Ern, L. Meignin and M. Rabaud, "Experimental evidence of a non-linear transition from convective to absolute instability", Submitted to Physical Review Letters (juillet 1998).

Abstract: We report both experimentally and analytically a transition from a convective to an absolute regime for a Kelvin-Helmholtz unstable sheared interface between two fluids in parallel flow in a Hele-Shaw cell. Experimental evidence is obtained by measurements from both sides of this transition, via two independent tests. The results are in good agreement with the non-linear transition recently described in a theoretical analysis [Couairon and Chomaz, Physica D 108, 236 (1997)].