Rayleigh-Bénard instability in a horizontal porous layer with anomalous diffusion

The analysis of the Rayleigh-Bénard instability due to the mass diffusion in a fluid-saturated horizontal porous layer is reconsidered. The standard diffusion theory based on the variance of the molecular position growing linearly in time is generalized to anomalous diffusion, where the variance is modeled as a power-law function of time. A model of anomalous diffusion based on a time-dependent mass diffusion coefficient is adopted, together with Darcy's law, for momentum transfer, and the Boussinesq approximation, for the description of the buoyant flow. A linear stability analysis is carried out for a basic state where the solute has a potentially unstable concentration distribution varying linearly in the vertical direction, and the fluid is at rest. It is shown that any, even slight, departure from the standard diffusion process has a dramatic effect on the onset conditions of the instability. This circumstance reveals a strong sensitivity to the anomalous diffusion index. It is shown that subdiffusion yields instability for every positive mass diffusion Rayleigh number, while superdiffusion brings stabilization no matter how large is the Rayleigh number. A discussion of the linear stability analysis based on the Galilei-variant fractional-derivative model of subdiffusion is eventually carried out.