Experimental analysis of the Strato-rotational Instability in a cylindrical Couette flow

Abstract

This study is devoted to the experimental analysis of the Strato-rotational Instability (SRI). This instability affects the classical cylindrical Couette flow when the fluid is stably stratified in the axial direction. In agreement with recent theoretical and numerical analyses, we describe for the first time in detail the destabilization of the stratified flow below the Rayleigh line (i.e. the stability threshold without stratification). We confirm that the unstable modes of the SRI are non axisymmetric, oscillatory, and take place as soon as the azimuthal linear velocity decreases along the radial direction. This new instability is relevant for accretion disks.

4 pages, 4 figures. PRL in press 2007

References in corpus (4)

• Stability and turbulent transport in rotating shear flows: prescription from analysis of cylindrical and plane Couette flows data
• An hydrodynamic shear instability in stratified disks
• Stability of density-stratified viscous Taylor-Couette flows
• Magnetoelliptic Instabilities

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• Azimuthal velocity profiles in Rayleigh-stable Taylor-Couette flow and implied axial angular momentum transport
• The stratorotational instability of Taylor-Couette flows of moderate Reynolds numbers
• Magnetohydrodynamics of stably stratified regions in planets and stars
• Stratorotational instability in Taylor-Couette flow heated from above
• Experiments and long-term High Performance Computations on amplitude modulations of strato-rotational flows
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• Nonlinear waves in stratified Taylor--Couette flow. Part 2. Buoyancy flux
• Localized layers of turbulence in stratified horizontally sheared Poiseuille flow
• Instability criterion for oblique modes in stratified circular Couette flow
• Centrifugal instability of Taylor-Couette flow in stratified and diffusive fluids