On the Rayleigh–Taylor instability for the two-phase Navier–Stokes equations in cylindrical domains

Abstract

We are considering the two-phase Navier–Stokes equations with surface tension, modelling the dynamic behaviour of two immiscible and incompressible fluids in a cylindrical domain, which are separated by a sharp interface forming a contact angle with the fixed boundary. In the case that the heavy fluid is situated on top of the light fluid, one expects the effect which is known as Rayleigh–Taylor instability . Our main result implies the existence of a critical surface tension with the following property: In the case that the surface tension of the interface separating the two fluids is smaller than the critical surface tension, Rayleigh–Taylor instability occurs. On the contrary, if the surface tension of the interface is larger than the critical value, one has exponential stability of the flat interfaces. The last part of this article is concerned with the bifurcation of nontrivial equilibria in multiple eigenvalues. The invariance of the corresponding bifurcation equation with respect to rotations and reflections yields the existence of bifurcating subcritical equilibria.