Convection Cells driven by Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking

A clear signature of far-from-equilibrium systems, convection cells are ubiquitous in nature. Typically, they are driven by external forces, like gravity (in combination with temperature gradients) or shear. Here, we show the existence of such cells in a simple (possibly the simplest) system involving only a temperature gradient. In particular, we study a two-dimensional Ising lattice gas in contact with two thermal reservoirs, one at infinite temperature and another at a finite T. When T drops below the critical temperature, phase separation emerges and creates convection cells.