Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-topics-in-applied-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2008/a/4/e/solution

Here and , so a perturbation varying in both coordinates has and
With the given unit coefficients the determinant becomes . The trace remains negative, so instability occurs precisely when , or
The right-hand side is strictly increasing for , since its derivative is . Its smallest allowed value is attained by the mode , giving the onset threshold
At this value the first mixed mode has a zero eigenvalue; it becomes unstable for . Thus the critical value is the infimum of the strictly unstable range, rather than a strictly unstable point itself. Its spatial factor is .

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