Rayleigh-B\'enard instability in a horizontal porous layer with anomalous diffusion

TL;DR

This paper investigates how anomalous diffusion affects Rayleigh-Bénard instability in a porous layer, revealing that subdiffusion promotes instability while superdiffusion stabilizes the system, with significant sensitivity to the diffusion index.

Contribution

It introduces a generalized model of anomalous diffusion into the stability analysis of buoyant flow in porous media, highlighting the impact of non-standard diffusion on instability conditions.

Findings

Subdiffusion causes instability at all positive Rayleigh numbers.

Superdiffusion stabilizes the system regardless of Rayleigh number.

Anomalous diffusion index critically influences the onset of instability.

Abstract

The analysis of the Rayleigh-B\'enard instability due to the mass diffusion in a fluid-saturated horizontal porous layer is reconsidered. The standard diffusion theory based on the variance of the molecular position growing linearly in time is generalised to anomalous diffusion, where the variance is modelled as a power-law function of time. A model of anomalous diffusion based on a time-dependent mass diffusion coefficient is adopted, together with Darcy's law, for momentum transfer, and the Boussinesq approximation, for the description of the buoyant flow. A linear stability analysis is carried out for a basic state where the solute has a potentially unstable concentration distribution varying linearly in the vertical direction and the fluid is at rest. It is shown that any, even slight, departure from the standard diffusion process has a dramatic effect on the onset conditions of the instability. This circumstance reveals a strong sensitivity to the anomalous diffusion index. It is shown that subdiffusion yields instability for every positive mass diffusion Rayleigh number, while superdiffusion brings stabilisation no matter how large is the Rayleigh number. A discussion of the linear stability analysis based on the Galilei-variant fractional-derivative model of subdiffusion is eventually carried out.