Thermal convection instability of a two-component fluid layer in hydromagnetics

The thermal convection instability of a two component fluid layer subjected to a temperature gradient has been studied in the presence of an applied magnetic field. The associated thermal diffusion separation has a predominant effect even when the separations are small. Solutions for the non-oscillatory marginal states have been obtained. It is shown that the concentration gradient has a stabiliting or destabilizing effect according as T<or>0. Approximate solutions for the oscillatory solutions have been obtained by the method of variational principle and the dispersion relation has been solved numerically.