For concentration per unit surface area, conservation on a moving material interface gives
The material derivative follows the surface particles. The two dilution terms are tangential expansion and curvature-induced area change from normal velocity ; the last term is surface diffusion.
The material derivative follows the interfacial surfactant. The term describes dilution by tangential expansion and concentration by compression. The term accounts for changing surface area due to normal motion of a curved interface. Finally, describes surface diffusion. Together these give conservation of insoluble surfactant on a moving interface.
The relevant surface Péclet number is
Write and . Since has zero trace and , the surface divergence is
There is no normal motion. To first order in , the steady surfactant balance becomes . The traceless quadratic is a degree-two spherical harmonic, so . The mean of is zero by total surfactant conservation; consequently
The discarded advective term is smaller by . This is the quadrupolar surfactant distribution on a spherical interface.
With the unit normal directed from the bubble into the exterior, the interfacial stress balance with variable surface tension is
Using the specified first-order curvature and , together with , gives
The first term is the spherical capillary pressure; the last contains the normal tension correction and the tangential Marangoni stress.
The ambient Stokes flow has the symmetry of the symmetric traceless tensor . In the Unscaled Papkovich–Neuber representation, is harmonic and yields . The decaying vector potential must have the form , and the scalar disturbance must have the degree-two form . They are harmonic outside the bubble and have precisely the required rotational covariance. Dimensionless amplitudes may therefore be written
For a steady bubble, the no-penetration boundary condition gives . Its tangential velocity gives . The tangential stress boundary condition then yields
Hence , and . The inviscid interior supplies only the constant pressure balancing . Matching the remaining normal stress gives
Eliminating gives
As , : the Marangoni stress suppresses tangential motion and effectively immobilizes the interface. This limit must retain the small surface Péclet number and small-deformation assumptions; can grow through increasing without invalidating the linear concentration approximation.