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Updated: Nov 10, 2025

Magnetically Induced Rotating Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
Published on: March 3, 2017
"Extraordinary" modulation instability in optics and hydrodynamics
Guillaume Vanderhaegen1, Corentin Naveau2, Pascal Szriftgiser2
1University of Lille, CNRS, UMR 8523-PhLAM-Physique des Lasers Atomes et Molécules, F-59000 Lille, France; guillaume.vanderhaegen@univ-lille.fr.
Abstract:
The classical theory of modulation instability (MI) attributed to Bespalov-Talanov in optics and Benjamin-Feir for water waves is just a linear approximation of nonlinear effects and has limitations that have been corrected using the exact weakly nonlinear theory of wave propagation. We report results of experiments in both optics and hydrodynamics, which are in excellent agreement with nonlinear theory. These observations clearly demonstrate that MI has a wider band of unstable frequencies than predicted by the linear stability analysis. The range of areas where the nonlinear theory of MI can be applied is actually much larger than considered here.
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