Instability of a planar liquid layer in an alternating longitudinal magnetic field with non-zero mean (Q1082941)

The conducting liquid interface is found to undulate in an alternating magnetic field. It was shown earlier that if \(M=| B_ 0|^ 2/\mu \eta \omega,\quad B_ 0\), \(\omega\), \(\mu\) and \(\eta\) being the amplitude (complex) of the alternating longitudinal magnetic field imposed at the interface, the angular frequency of the field, the magnetic permeability and the viscosity, respectively, and if \(M_ c\) was the critical value of M then the planar layer was stable or unstable according as \(M<M_ c\) or \(M>M_ c\). In this paper we have determined the stability criterion when in addition to the alternating longitudinal field there acts a uniform field in the same direction. After comparing our results with those obtained earlier, in the absence of the uniform field, we find that the additional uniform field has a significant destabilizing effect.