Convection of a binary mixture under conditions of thermal diffusion and variable temperature gradient

Instability of a plane horizontal layer of an incompressible binary gas mixture stratified in the gravity field under the action of a transverse temperature gradient modulated in time is studied. The case of solid impermeable boundaries of the layer, where the flux of matter vanishes, is considered. The analysis is based on the Floquet method applied to linearized equations of convection in the Boussinesq approximation. It is shown that there are regions of parametric instability at finite frequencies. In addition to the synchronous or subharmonic response to an external action, the instability may be related to quasi-periodic disturbances. Depending on the amplitude and frequency, modulation can stabilize the unstable basic state and also destabilize the equilibrium of the fluid. The threshold values of convection for modulations of temperature and translational vertical vibrations are compared.