The dynamics of transient patterns formed by front propagation in extended nonequilibrium systems is considered. Under certain circumstances, the state left behind a front propagating into an unstable homogeneous state can be an unstable periodic pattern. It is found by a numerical solution of a model of the Fréedericksz transition in nematic liquid crystals that the mechanism of decay of such periodic unstable states is the propagation of a second front which replaces the unstable pattern by another unstable periodic state with a larger wavelength. The speed of this second front and the periodicity of the new state are analytically calculated with a generalization of the marginal stability formalism suited to the study of front propagation into periodic unstable states.

• Received 7 December 1993

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.50.377