  Our experiments on viscous (Saffman-Taylor) fingering in Hele-Shaw channels
reveal several phenomena that were not observed in previous experiments. At low
flow rates, growing fingers undergo width fluctuations that intermittently
narrow the finger as they evolve. The magnitude of these fluctuations is
proportional to Ca^{-0.64}, where Ca is the capillary number, which is
proportional to the finger velocity. This relation holds for all aspect ratios
studied up to the onset of tip instabilities. At higher flow rates, finger
pinch-off and reconnection events are observed. These events appear to be
caused by an interaction between the actively growing finger and suppressed
fingers at the back of the channel. Both the fluctuation and pinch-off
phenomena are robust but not explained by current theory.
