Absolute and convective instability character of slender viscous vortices

Motivated by the need for effective vortex control, the character of absolute and convective instabilities (AI/CI) of incompressible and high-Mach number slender vortices with axial-velocity deficit is studied. Attention is focused on the disturbance modes which lead to the maximum absolute growth rate, and their dependence on flow conditions such as axial-flow profile, Reynolds number, and Mach number. A significant difference between the AI/CI and temporal-instability characters of the vortices occurs as the axial velocity deficit reduces. These theoretical results are applied to the flow region where vortex breakdown happens. It is found that the breakdown region is absolutely unstable, where waves are dominated by the spiral disturbance with lowest azimuthal wave number, in reasonable agreement with measurement.