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Updated: Aug 23, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
Traveling waves in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection
Wooyoung Choi1, Dilip Prasad, Roberto Camassa
1Theoretical Division, and Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA.
Abstract:
A combined analytical, numerical, and experimental study of the traveling-wave wall mode in rotating Rayleigh-Bénard convection is presented. No-slip top and bottom boundary conditions are used for the numerical computation of the linear stability, and the coefficients of the linear complex Ginzburg-Landau equation are then computed for various rotation rates. Numerical results for the no-slip boundary conditions are compared with free-slip calculations and with experimental data, and detailed comparison is made at a dimensionless rotation rate Omega=274. It is found that the inclusion of the more realistic no-slip boundary conditions for the top and bottom surfaces brings the numerical linear stability analysis into better agreement with the experimental data compared with results using free-slip top/bottom boundary conditions. Some remaining discrepancies may be accounted for by the finite conductivity of the sidewall boundaries.
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