Rotational Stabilization of an Imploding Liquid Cylinder

Abstract

The interface between a heavy fluid surrounding a light fluid can accelerate in the direction of the heavier fluid without experiencing Rayleigh-Taylor instability, if the heavy fluid is rotating such that the sum of centripetal and radial accelerations at the interface is negative. This is demonstrated experimentally using rotating, hollow cylinders of liquid sodium-potassium alloy imploding on trapped magnetic flux.