Fully nonlinear three-dimensional convection in a rapidly rotating layer

Fully nonlinear three-dimensional convection in a rotating layer is studied for large Taylor numbers. In this regime, the leading order nonlinearity arises from the distortion of the horizontally averaged temperature profile. As a result, steady rolls, squares, hexagons, triangles, and a pattern called patchwork quilt all have identical Nusselt numbers. A similar degeneracy is present in overstable convection with six patterns having identical time-averaged Nusselt numbers and oscillation frequencies. These results are obtained via an asymptotic expansion in the Taylor number that determines, for each Rayleigh number, the time-averaged Nusselt number and oscillation frequency from the solution of a nonlinear eigenvalue problem for the vertical temperature profile. A number of other patterns are determined by a weakly nonlinear analysis that cannot be extended into the fully nonlinear regime by the present methods, but these patterns are necessarily unstable.