This is a list of hydrodynamic and plasma instabilities named after people (eponymous instabilities). {, class="wikitable" ! Instability !! Field !! Named for , - ,

Benjamin–Feir instability In the fields of nonlinear optics and fluid dynamics, modulational instability or sideband instability is a phenomenon whereby deviations from a periodic waveform are reinforced by nonlinearity, leading to the generation of spectral-sidebands and t ...

, , Surface gravity waves , , T. Brooke Benjamin and Jim E. Feir , - , Buneman instability , , Plasma physics , , Oscar Buneman , - , Chandrasekhar–Donnelly instability , , Taylor-Couette instability of

Helium II Helium (from el, ἥλιος, helios, lit=sun) is a chemical element with the symbol He and atomic number 2. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas and the first in the noble gas group in the periodic table. Its ...

, ,

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar (; ) (19 October 1910 – 21 August 1995) was an Indian-American theoretical physicist who spent his professional life in the United States. He shared the 1983 Nobel Prize for Physics with William A. Fowler for "... ...

and R.J. Donnelly , - , Cherenkov instability , , Plasma physics , , Pavel Alekseevič Čerenkov , - , Chromo-Weibel instability , , Plasma physics , , E. S. Weibel , - ,

Crow instability In aerodynamics, the Crow instability, or V.C.I. vortex crow instability, is an inviscid line-vortex instability, named after its discoverer S. C. Crow. The Crow instability is most commonly observed in the skies behind large aircraft such as the ...

, , Aerodynamics , , S. C. Crow , - , Darrieus–Landau instability , , Stability of propagating flame , ,

Georges Jean Marie Darrieus Georges Jean Marie Darrieus (24 September 1888 – 15 July 1979) was a French aeronautical engineer in the 20th century. He is perhaps most famous for his invention of the Darrieus rotor, a wind turbine capable of operating from any direction and ...

and

Lev Landau Lev Davidovich Landau (russian: Лев Дави́дович Ланда́у; 22 January 1908 – 1 April 1968) was a Soviet- Azerbaijani physicist of Jewish descent who made fundamental contributions to many areas of theoretical physics. His a ...

, - , Dean instability , , Stability of flow in a curved pipe , ,

William Reginald Dean William Reginald Dean (1896–1973) was a British applied mathematician and fluid dynamicist. His research interests included Stokes flow, solid mechanics, and flow in curved channels. The Dean number bears his name. Dean carried out pioneering wo ...

, - , D'Yakov–Kontorovich instability , , Stability of a plane shock , , S. P. D'Yakov and V. M. Kontorovich , - , Faraday instability , , Vibrating fluid surfaces , , M. Faraday , - ,

Farley–Buneman instability The Farley–Buneman instability, or FB instability, is a microscopic plasma instability named after Donald T. Farley and Oscar Buneman. It is similar to the ionospheric Rayleigh-Taylor instability. It occurs in collisional plasma with neutral ...

, , Plasma instability , , Donald T. Farley and Oscar Buneman , - , Görtler instability , , Stability of flow along a concave

boundary layer In physics and fluid mechanics, a boundary layer is the thin layer of fluid in the immediate vicinity of a bounding surface formed by the fluid flowing along the surface. The fluid's interaction with the wall induces a no-slip boundary condi ...

, , H. Görtler , - ,

Holmboe instability Holmboe is a Scandinavian surname. Notable people with the surname include: Norwegian family * Jens Holmboe (bailiff) (1752–1804), Norwegian bailiff * Even Hammer Holmboe (1792–1859), Norwegian politician, child of Jens Holmboe * Hans Holmboe ...

, , Stratified shear flows , ,

Jørgen Holmboe Jørgen Holmboe (November 8, 1902 – October 29, 1979) was a Norwegian-American meteorologist. Life and career Jørgen Holmboe was born near Hammerfest, Norway, on an island a short distance from the northernmost point in Norway. He was the ...

, - ,

Jeans instability In stellar physics, the Jeans instability causes the collapse of interstellar gas clouds and subsequent star formation, named after James Jeans. It occurs when the internal gas pressure is not strong enough to prevent gravitational collapse of a ...

, , Stability of interstellar gas clouds , ,

James Jeans Sir James Hopwood Jeans (11 September 187716 September 1946) was an English physicist, astronomer and mathematician. Early life Born in Ormskirk, Lancashire, the son of William Tulloch Jeans, a parliamentary correspondent and author. Jeans was ...

, - ,

Kelvin–Helmholtz instability The Kelvin–Helmholtz instability (after Lord Kelvin and Hermann von Helmholtz) is a fluid instability that occurs when there is velocity shear in a single continuous fluid or a velocity difference across the interface between two fluids. ...

, , Stability of shearing flow , ,

Lord Kelvin William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, (26 June 182417 December 1907) was a British mathematician, Mathematical physics, mathematical physicist and engineer born in Belfast. Professor of Natural Philosophy (Glasgow), Professor of Natural Philoso ...

and

Hermann von Helmholtz Hermann Ludwig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (31 August 1821 – 8 September 1894) was a German physicist and physician who made significant contributions in several scientific fields, particularly hydrodynamic stability. The Helmholtz Association, ...

, - ,

Kruskal–Shafranov instability A kink instability (also kink oscillation or kink mode), is a Electric current, current-driven Plasma stability#Plasma instabilities, plasma instability characterized by transverse displacements of a plasma column's cross-section from its center o ...

, , Plasma physics , ,

Martin David Kruskal Martin David Kruskal (; September 28, 1925 – December 26, 2006) was an American mathematician and physicist. He made fundamental contributions in many areas of mathematics and science, ranging from plasma physics to general relativity and ...

and

Vitaly Shafranov Vitaly Dmitrievich Shafranov (russian: Виталий Дмитриевич Шафранов; December 1, 1929 – June 9, 2014) was a Russian theoretical physicist and Academician who worked with plasma physics and thermonuclear fusion research. ...

, - , Peratt instability{{cn, date=August 2012 , , Plasma physics , ,

Anthony Peratt Anthony L. Peratt is an American physicist whose most notable achievements have been in plasma discharge petroglyphs, plasma physics, nuclear fusion and the monitoring of nuclear weapons. Education Peratt was a graduate student of Nobel Prize ...

, - ,

Plateau–Rayleigh instability The Plateau–Rayleigh instability, often just called the Rayleigh instability, explains why and how a falling stream of fluid breaks up into smaller packets with the same volume but less surface area. It is related to the Rayleigh–Taylor insta ...

, , Stability of jets and drops , ,

Joseph Plateau Joseph Antoine Ferdinand Plateau (14 October 1801 – 15 September 1883) was a Belgian physicist and mathematician. He was one of the first people to demonstrate the illusion of a moving image. To do this, he used counterrotating disks with repea ...

and

Lord Rayleigh John William Strutt, 3rd Baron Rayleigh, (; 12 November 1842 – 30 June 1919) was an English mathematician and physicist who made extensive contributions to science. He spent all of his academic career at the University of Cambridge. Amo ...

, - , Rayleigh–Bénard instability , , Natural convection, Rayleigh–Bénard convection , ,

and

Henri Bénard Henri Claude Bénard (25 October 1874 – 29 March 1939) was a French physicist, best known for his research on convection in liquids that now carries his name, Bénard convection. In addition, the historical surveys of both Tokaty and von Ká ...

, - ,

Rayleigh–Taylor instability The Rayleigh–Taylor instability, or RT instability (after Lord Rayleigh and G. I. Taylor), is an instability of an interface between two fluids of different densities which occurs when the lighter fluid is pushing the heavier fluid. Drazin (20 ...

, , Instability created by density stratification , ,

and

Geoffrey Ingram Taylor Sir Geoffrey Ingram Taylor OM FRS FRSE (7 March 1886 – 27 June 1975) was a British physicist and mathematician, and a major figure in fluid dynamics and wave theory. His biographer and one-time student, George Batchelor, described him as " ...

, - ,

Richtmyer–Meshkov instability The Richtmyer–Meshkov instability (RMI) occurs when two fluids of different density are impulsively accelerated. Normally this is by the passage of a shock wave. The development of the instability begins with small amplitude perturbations which ...

, , Plasma physics, Astrophysics , , R. D. Richtmyer and E. E. Meshkov , - ,

Saffman–Taylor instability The Saffman–Taylor instability, also known as viscous fingering, is the formation of patterns in a morphologically unstable interface between fluids, interface between two fluids in a porous medium, described mathematically by Philip Saffman and ...

, , Flow in porous medium , ,

Philip Saffman Philip Geoffrey Saffman FRS (19 March 1931 – 17 August 2008) was a mathematician and the Theodore von Kármán Professor of Applied Mathematics and Aeronautics at the California Institute of Technology.. Education and early life Saffman was ...

and

, - , Taylor–Caulfield instability , , Stratified shear flows , ,

an
Colm-cille P. Caulfield
, - , Taylor–Couette instability , , Flow in rotating cylinder , ,

and

Maurice Marie Alfred Couette Maurice Marie Alfred Couette (9 January 1858, Tours – 18 August 1943, Angers) was a French physicist known for his studies of fluidity. Couette is best known for his contributions to rheology and the theory of fluid flow. He designed a concent ...

, - , Tollmien–Schlichting instability , , Wave instability in shearing flows , ,

Walter Tollmien Walter Tollmien (13 October 1900, in Berlin – 25 November 1968, in Göttingen) was a German fluid dynamicist. Life Walter Tollmien studied from the winter semester 1920–1921 mathematics and physics with Ludwig Prandtl in Göttingen and then f ...

and

Hermann Schlichting Hermann Schlichting (22 September 1907 – 15 June 1982) was a German fluid dynamics engineer. Life and work Hermann Schlichting studied from 1926 till 1930 mathematics, physics and applied mechanics at the University of Jena, Vienne and Gö ...

, - , Velikhov instability , , Plasma physics (non-equilibrium MHD) , ,

Evgeny Velikhov Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov (born on February 2, 1935; in Russian: ''Евгений Павлович Велихов'') is a physicist and scientific leader in the Russia, Russian Federation. His scientific interests include Plasma (physics), plasma ...

, - , Velikhov-Chandrasekhar instability , , Stability of rotating fluid in magnetic field , ,

and

, - ,

Weibel instability The Weibel instability is a plasma instability present in homogeneous or nearly homogeneous electromagnetic plasmas which possess an anisotropy in momentum (velocity) space. This anisotropy is most generally understood as two temperatures in diffe ...

, , Plasma physics , , E. S. Weibel

References

* Chandrashekhar, S., ''Hydrodynamic and Hydromagnetic Stability'', Dover Publications, New York (1981). * Drazin, P. G. and W. H. Reid, ''Hydrodynamic Stability'', Cambridge Univ. Press, London (1981). Hydrodynamic instabilities Fluid dynamics Fluid dynamic instabilities

See also

References