Faraday instability of a two-layer liquid film with a free upper surface

We study the linear stability of a laterally extended flat two-layer liquid film under the influence of external vertical vibration. The first liquid layer rests on a vibrating solid plate and is overlaid by a second layer of immiscible fluid with deformable upper surface. Surface waves, excited as the result of the Faraday instability, can be characterized by a time-dependent relative amplitude of the displacements of the liquid-liquid and the liquid-gas interfaces. The in-phase displacements are associated with a zigzag (barotropic) mode and the antiphase displacement corresponds to the varicose thinning mode. We numerically determine the stability threshold in the vibrated two-layer film and compute the dispersion relation together with the decay rates of the surface waves in the absence of vibration. The in-phase and the antiphase displacements are strongly coupled in the vibrated system. The interplay between the Faraday and the Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities in the system with heavier fluid on top of a lighter fluid is analyzed.