Destabilization of a creeping flow by interfacial surfactant: linear theory extended to all wavenumbers

Creeping flow of a two-layer system with a monolayer of an insoluble surfactant on the interface is considered. The linear-stability theory of plane Couette-Poiseuille flow is developed in the Stokes approximation. To isolate the Marangoni effect, gravity is excluded. The shear-flow instability due to the interfacial surfactant, uncovered earlier for long waves only (Frenkel & Halpern 2002), is studied with inclusion of all wavelengths, and over the entire parameter space of the Marangoni number M, the viscosity ratio m, the interfacial velocity shear s, and the thickness ratio n (greater than or equal to 1). The complex wave speed of normal modes solves a quadratic equation, and the growth rate function is continuous at all wavenumbers and all parameter values. If M > 0, s not equal 0, m < n(2), and n > 1, the small disturbances grow provided they are sufficiently long wave. However, the instability is not long wave in the following sense: the unstable waves are not necessarily much longer than the smaller of the two layer thicknesses. On the other hand, there are parametric regimes for which the instability has a mid-wave character, the flow being stable at both sufficiently large and small wavelengths and unstable in between. The critical (instability-onset) manifold in the parameter space is investigated. Also, it is shown that for certain parametric limits the convergence of the dispersion function is non-uniform with respect to the wavenumber. This is used to explain the parametric discontinuities of the long-wave growth-rate exponents found earlier.