Effects of rotation on the thermoconvective instability of a horizontal layer of ferrofluids (Q1315709)

Ferromagnetic fluids are colloidal suspensions of fine magnetic particles in non-conducting liquids. When a magnetic field is applied, these synethesised fluids possess giant magnetic response and can exhibit some novel and striking effects. This paper studies a ferrofluid confined between two horizontal plates which are maintained at constant but different temperatures. A magnetic field is applied in a direction orthogonal to the plates, and the system is allowed to rotate with constant angular velocity about an axis in the direction of the applied magnetic field. For this problem the paper performs a linearised instability analysis. An investigation is performed to see under what conditions oscillatory convection may occur (i.e. imaginary growth rate), and the writers conclude that in general, stationary convection may be expected; thus they restrict attention to a real growth rate. An exact solution is exhibited for two stress free boundaries. Then, numerical results are presented for the more realistic cases involving fixed boundaries.