Abstract: In this work, we present a theoretical study on the stability of a twodimensional plane Poiseuille flow of magnetic fluids in the presence of externally applied magnetic flelds. The fluids are assumed to be incompressible, and their magnetization is coupled to the flow through a simple phenomenological equation. Dimensionless parameters are deflned, and the equations are perturbed around the base state. The eigenvalues of the linearized system are computed using a flnite difierence scheme and studied with respect to the dimensionless parameters of the problem. We examine the cases of both the horizontal and vertical magnetic flelds. The obtained results indicate that the flow is destabilized in the horizontally applied magnetic fleld, but stabilized in the vertically applied fleld. We characterize the stability of the flow by computing the stability diagrams in terms of the dimensionless parameters and determine the variation in the critical Reynolds number in terms of the magnetic parameters. Furthermore, we show that the superparamagnetic limit, in which the magnetization of the fluids decouples from hydrodynamics, recovers the same purely hydrodynamic critical Reynolds number, regardless of the applied fleld direction and of the values of the other dimensionless magnetic parameters.

Key words: hydrodynamic stability, magnetic fluid, Orr-Sommerfeld equation, magnetization evolution