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| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2025
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| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.13184 |
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Table of Contents:
- Spinning ice discs in nature have been reported for more than a century, yet laboratory experiments have yielded diverse observations and contradictory explanations, leaving the mechanism behind the disc motion elusive. Here we combine numerical simulations and scaling analysis to investigate a freely moving ice disc in a lab-scale water tank. We observe the disc remaining stationary or experiencing spontaneous motion, depending on the disc-water temperature difference and water depth. The motion is initiated by a buoyancy-driven, downward plume arising from water's density anomaly -- its density peaks near $4^\circ$C. Crucially, the plume breaks rotational and mirror symmetries after descending beyond a critical distance due to a thermoconvective instability, thereby inducing the disc to move autonomously. Our findings quantitatively unify disc behaviors observed across independent experiments and establish a predictive criterion for the onset of disc motion. More broadly, we point to a route for thermally-driven transport: coupling of bulk thermoconvection and moving bodies, relevant to geophysical processes such as continental drift and iceberg capsizing.