Plume flux-balance invariant ($M^{5/2}-5F{Q}^2/(8\alpha )=C$)

When $F$ and $\alpha$ are constant, eliminating height between $Q^{\prime }=2\alpha \sqrt{M}$ and $M^{\prime }=FQ/M$ gives $d(M^{5/2})/dQ=5FQ/(4\alpha )$. Thus $M^{5/2}-5F{Q}^2/(8\alpha )$ is constant. Its sign classifies forced and lazy departures from pure plume balance, and its vanishing makes a finite-source plume exactly self-similar after a virtual-origin shift.

For an axisymmetric top-hat plume model in uniform ambient density, use full kinematic fluxes and $c=2{\alpha }_e\sqrt{\pi }$. The equations $Q^{\prime }=c\sqrt{M}$, $M^{\prime }=F_{0}Q/M$ conserve $M^{5/2}-5F_0{Q}^2/(4c)$. Solve this invariant for $M(Q)$, then integrate $dz=dQ/(c\sqrt{M})$ to obtain the displayed exact quadrature. It determines the transition from the near-source jet limit of the top-hat plume model to the distant pure plume. The two regimes cannot be added by linear superposition because the flux equations are nonlinear.

For positive source fluxes and positive constant buoyancy flux, the plume flux-balance invariant has a finite constant while $Q$ grows without bound. Dividing by $Q^2$ makes the source imbalance vanish relatively. The balances then give $Q\sim (6\alpha /5)(9\alpha F/10{)}^{1/3}{z}^{5/3}$ and $M\sim (9\alpha F/10{)}^{2/3}{z}^{4/3}$. This attraction concerns relative similarity and does not assert that different finite sources share the same virtual origin.