Quadrupolar surfactant distribution on a spherical interface

For radius $a$ and tangential velocity ${\mathbf{u}}_s={\mathbf{I}}_s\mathbf{Ax}$ with symmetric traceless $\mathbf{A}$, the surface divergence is $-3\mathbf{n}\cdot \mathbf{An}$. At small surface Péclet number $a^2|\mathbf{A}|/D_s$, neglecting advection of the concentration perturbation givesThe result follows because this quadratic is a degree-two spherical harmonic with surface Laplacian $-6/a^2$ times itself and zero spherical mean.