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Updated: Jun 3, 2026

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
Spontaneous mode-selection in the self-propelled motion of a solid/liquid composite driven by interfacial instability
Fumi Takabatake1, Nobuyuki Magome, Masatoshi Ichikawa
1Department of Physics, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, Kyoto 606-8502, Japan.
Abstract:
Spontaneous motion of a solid/liquid composite induced by a chemical Marangoni effect, where an oil droplet attached to a solid soap is placed on a water phase, was investigated. The composite exhibits various characteristic motions, such as revolution (orbital motion) and translational motion. The results showed that the mode of this spontaneous motion switches with a change in the size of the solid scrap. The essential features of this mode-switching were reproduced by ordinary differential equations by considering nonlinear friction with proper symmetry.
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