 Collar-to-film capillary matching

Near a collar edge adjoining a film of thickness $h_f$, local mass conservation gives $h^3{h}^{\prime \prime \prime }=c(h-h_f)$. The scaling $h=h_{f}H$, $x-x_f=h_{f}X/c^{1/3}$ yields the displayed equation. Its linearization at $H=1$ has exponents $1$ and $-1/2\pm i\sqrt{3}/2$. The positive growing rear branch approaching one as $X\to -\infty$ has one amplitude, removable by translation; the front's decaying oscillatory branches have two amplitudes, leaving one parameter after translation. This dimension count describes local branches; global positivity and selection require matching. If their core asymptotes, after removing linear terms by translation, are $H_{-}\sim a_{-}{X}^2+b_{-}$ and $H_{+}\sim a_{+}(\lambda )X^2+b_{+}(\lambda )$, matching to the collar gives $A/2=a_{\pm }{c}^{2/3}/h_{\pm }$ and $B=b_{\pm }{h}_{\pm }$. Consequently $a_{+}{b}_{+}=a_{-}{b}_{-}$; a selected root with $\alpha =a_{+}({\lambda }_0)>a_{-}$ yields $c=(A{h}_{+}/(2\alpha ){)}^{3/2}$, $B=h_{+}{b}_{+}({\lambda }_0)$ and $h_{-}/h_{+}=a_{-}/\alpha$. Local linearization alone does not establish uniqueness of this global matching root.