  Boundary conditions at a liquid-solid interface are crucial to dynamics of a
liquid film coated on a fibre. Here a theoretical framework based on
axisymmetric Stokes equations is developed to explore the influence of
liquid-solid slip on the Rayleigh-Plateau instability of a cylindrical film on
a fibre. The new model not only shows that the slip-enhanced growth rate of
perturbations is overestimated by the classical lubrication model, but also
indicates a slip-dependent dominant wavelength, instead of a constant value
obtained by the lubrication method, which leads to larger drops formed on a
more slippery fibre. The theoretical findings are validated by direct numerical
simulations of Navier-Stokes equations via a volume-of-fluid method.
Additionally, the slip-dependent dominant wavelengths predicted by our model
agree with the experimental results provided by Haefner. et al.[Nat. Commun.,
Vol. 6(1), 2015, 18 pp. 1-6].
