title: Surface instability of icicles.
abstract: Quantitatively unexplained stationary waves or ridges often encircle icicles. Such waves form when roughly 0.1-mm-thick layers of water flow down an icicle. These waves typically have a wavelength of about 1 cm, which is independent of external temperature, icicle thickness, and the volumetric rate of water flow. In this paper, we show that these waves cannot be obtained by a naive Mullins-Sekerka instability but are caused by a quite different type of surface instability related to thermal diffusion and the hydrodynamic effect of a thin water flow.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Low Temperature Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo 060-0819, Japan. ogawa@particle.sci.hokudai.ac.jp
authors.forename: Naohisa
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Ogawa
authors.forename: Yoshinori
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Furukawa