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The instantaneous kinematic viscosity law is $\bar{\nu }(r,\Sigma )$, with no explicit constitutive memory. Expand its transported quantity at the possibly evolving background:The viscous transport response exponent satisfies ${\partial }_{\Sigma }(\bar{\nu }\Sigma ){|}_0=q{\bar{\nu }}_0$. Subtract the background equation and retain only linear terms to obtainThis remains a linear equation with space- and time-dependent background coefficients; neither a steady background nor constant $q$ is required for this step. The sign of the response coefficient is the negative-diffusion criterion for viscous disk instability.

For a steady zero-mass-flux background and constant viscous transport response exponent, this change removes the first derivative in the radial diffusion operator. If ${\Sigma }_0\propto r^{-p}$, the kinematic viscosity scales as $r^{p-1/2}$, so the transformed diffusivity scales as $x^{2p-3}$. It is constant at $p=3/2$.