Fluid Dynamics and Convection Stability Physicist (PhD)

About the work

CritPt is a public benchmark of research-level physics challenges, built to test whether frontier AI models can carry out genuine physics research reasoning rather than textbook problem solving. The benchmark paper is arXiv:2509.26574 and we recommend reading it before applying. It will tell you quickly whether this work interests you.

We are engaging physicists to work on research-level physics problems in their own subfield. Depending on where your publication record fits, that can mean creating problems, solving them, reviewing completed work, or auditing it. We agree the specific assignment with you once you are matched to an area.

This is research-grade work rather than volume work. Whatever you produce has to be complete enough for another specialist in your subfield to follow and verify independently, so written reasoning is part of every assignment.

Research areas in this panel

Two areas, both on the linear stability of buoyancy-driven convection. We match narrowly: you need to have published on convection stability specifically, not on fluid dynamics broadly. Each area lists the methods it requires.

1. Rayleigh-Benard convection: linear stability with mixed boundary conditions: Rayleigh-Benard convection, Boussinesq approximation, linear stability analysis, normal-mode perturbation expansion, mixed mechanical and thermal boundary conditions, fixed-flux thermal forcing, marginal stability analysis, spectral eigenvalue methods.

2. Porous-medium (Rayleigh-Darcy) convection: linear stability: Darcy's law for porous-medium flow, Rayleigh-Darcy convection, Boussinesq buoyancy approximation, linear stability analysis, constant-flux and open boundary conditions, normal-mode perturbation expansion, marginal stability analysis, buoyancy-driven transport in saturated porous layers.

Methods we expect to find in your own publications

You should be able to point to your own papers demons