Interface instability in shear-banding flow

We report on the spatiotemporal dynamics of the interface in shear-banding flow of a wormlike micellar system (cetyltrimethylammonium bromide and sodium nitrate in water) during a start-up experiment. Using the scattering properties of the induced structures, we demonstrate the existence of an instability of the interface between bands along the vorticity direction. Different regimes of spatiotemporal dynamics of the interface are identified along the stress plateau. We build a model based on the flow symmetry which qualitatively describes the observed patterns.