Density Gradients in a Rotating Stratified Fluid: Experimental Evidence for a New Instability

Abstract

Velocity gradients induced in a rapidly rotaiting, density-stratified saltwater solution by a slowly rotating disk produce sharp vertical gradients of density, which appear as regularly spaced, curved horizontal sheets when the ratio of angular velocities exceeds a critical value. The existence of the sheets is apparently a finite amplitude manifestationl of a recently proposed viscous instability.