Magnetically-induced Rayleigh Taylor instability under rotation: comparison of experimental and theoretical results

Our theoretical work has shown that rotating a Rayleigh-Taylor-unstable two-layer stratifica-tion about a vertical axis slows the development of the instability under gravity, and can stabilise axisymmetric modes indefinitely. Here, we compare theoretical predictions directly with our experiments on a rotating two-layer system which is made unstable by magnetic forces applied using a superconducting magnet