Thermocapillary stabilization of Liquid Space Telescopes
Abstract
We investigate how spatially uniform, time-modulated heating can be used to stabilize a thin liquid mirror in microgravity. Periodic heating generates oscillatory thermocapillary flows that suppress the instability associated with sustained heating, allowing the free surface to relax through the combined effects of thermal radiation, thermocapillary transport, and capillarity. Using multiple-scale analysis of a long-wave model, we derive the coupled surface-temperature evolution over many heating cycles. A subsequent linear stability analysis yields the stability criteria and decay times of individual surface modes. Numerical simulations validate the analytical predictions and demonstrate stabilization of meter-scale surface deformations over timescales of days.
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BibTeX
@misc{engle2026thermocapillary,
title = {{Thermocapillary stabilization of Liquid Space Telescopes}},
author = {Ryan Engle and Valeri Frumkin},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.08654},
eprint = {2610.08654},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.08654},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Thermocapillary stabilization of Liquid Space Telescopes
AU - Ryan Engle
AU - Valeri Frumkin
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/14
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.08654
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.08654
AB - We investigate how spatially uniform, time-modulated heating can be used to stabilize a thin liquid mirror in microgravity. Periodic heating generates oscillatory thermocapillary flows that suppress the instability associated with sustained heating, allowing the free surface to relax through the combined effects of thermal radiation, thermocapillary transport, and capillarity. Using multiple-scale analysis of a long-wave model, we derive the coupled surface-temperature evolution over many heating cycles. A subsequent linear stability analysis yields the stability criteria and decay times of individual surface modes. Numerical simulations validate the analytical predictions and demonstrate stabilization of meter-scale surface deformations over timescales of days.
ER -