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

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Abstract
Velocity gradients induced in a rapidly rotating, 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 manifestation of a recently proposed viscous instability.