On the stability of capillary waves on the surface of a charged jet moving relative to the environment

A dispersion relation is derived for capillary waves with arbitrary symmetry (arbitrary azimuthal numbers) on the surface of a charged cylindrical jet of an ideal incompressible conducting liquid moving relative to an ideal incompressible dielectric medium. It is shown that a tangential discontinuity in the velocity field on the surface of the jet leads to periodic instability of waves (similar to the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability) at the interface and destabilizes both axisymmetric and flexural waves. The wavenumber range for unstable waves and the instability growth rate increase with the field strength and relative speed of motion, varying as the square of these parameters. In the case of the neutral jet, the flexural instability is of the threshold character and sets in starting from a certain finite value of the speed rather than at an arbitrary small speed.