Smiron Varghese, Benjamin Miquel, Wouter J T Bos
We present an analytical investigation of the global helicity budget associated with the salt-fingering instability within the two-dimensional, three-component framework. Our analysis shows that in the region of parameter space corresponding to salt fingering, helicity amplification occurs when the Rayleigh ratio-quantifying the relative strength of salinity to temperature gradients-exceeds a critical threshold. This finding provides a possible theoretical explanation for the spontaneous emergence of helicity, observed in recent numerical simulations.