The role of the electric Bond number in the stability of pasta phases

TL;DR

This paper investigates how the electric Bond number influences the stability of pasta phases in cylindrical and spherical Wigner-Seitz cells, revealing that the virial theorem can stabilize these configurations by bounding electric effects.

Contribution

It introduces the electric Bond number as a key parameter and demonstrates how the virial theorem constrains electric forces, affecting pasta phase stability.

Findings

Electric Bond number affects pasta phase stability.

Virial theorem bounds electric effects, stabilizing modes.

Different instability modes are identified in various geometries.

Abstract

The stability of pasta phases in cylindrical and spherical Wigner-Seitz (W-S) cells is examined. The electric Bond number is introduced as the ratio of electric and surface energies. In the case of a charged rod in vacuum, other kinds of instabilities appear in addition to the well known Plateau- Rayleigh mode. For the case of a rod confined in a W-S cell the variety of unstable modes is reduced. It comes from the virial theorem, which bounds the value of the Bond number from above and reduces the role played by electric forces. A similar analysis is done for the spherical W-S cell, where it appears that the inclusion of the virial theorem stabilizes all of the modes.