Perturbative stability of catenoidal soap films

The perturbative stability of catenoidal soap films formed between parallel, equal radii, coaxial rings is studied using analytical and semi-analytical methods. Using a theorem on the nature of eigenvalues for a class of Sturm–Liouville operators, we show that for the given boundary conditions, azimuthally asymmetric perturbations are stable, while symmetric perturbations lead to an instability–a result demonstrated in Ben Amar et. al [7] using numerics and experiment. Further, we show how to obtain the lowest real eigenvalue of perturbations, using the semi-analytical Asymptotic Iteration Method (AIM). Conclusions using AIM support the analytically obtained result as well as the results in [7]. Finally, we compute the eigenfunctions and show, pictorially, how the perturbed soap film evolves in time.