Effect of thermocapillary forces on the initial section of a melt film

The previous analysis of fields near the upper triple point of the floating–zone melting process is supplemented by the analysis of thermocapillary forces on the melt surface. It is shown that the effect of these forces is large in the general case, and a melt film with a macroscopic radius of curvature may be formed only if the temperature gradient over the melt surface and thermocapillary forces are small; in this case, the angular coordinates of the melt–film cross section are also small.