We consider the linearized instability of 2D irrotational solitary water waves. The maxima of energy and the travel speed of solitary waves are not obtained at the highest wave, which has a 120 degree angle at the crest. Under the assumption of non-existence of secondary bifurcation which is confirmed numerically, we prove linear instability of solitary waves which are higher than the wave of maximal energy and lower than the wave of maximal travel speed. It is also shown that there exist unstable solitary waves approaching the highest wave. The unstable waves are of large amplitude and therefore this type of instability can not be captured by the approximate models derived under small amplitude assumptions. For the proof, we introduce a family of nonlocal dispersion operators to relate the linear instability problem with the elliptic nature of solitary waves. A continuity argument with a moving kernel formula is used to study these dispersion operators to yield the instability criterion.
We construct small-amplitude solitary traveling gravity-capillary water waves with a finite number of point vortices along a vertical line, on finite depth. This is done using a local bifurcation argument. The properties of the resulting waves are also examined: We find that they depend significantly on the position of the point vortices in the water column.
The solitary wave problem at the free surface of a two-dimensional, infinitely-deep and irrotational flow of water, under the influence of gravity, is formulated as a nonlinear pseudodifferential equation. A Pohozaev identity is used to show that it admits no solutions which asymptotically vanish faster than linearly.
We present an exact relation among the kinetic, potential and surface tension energies of a solitary wave in deep water in all dimensions. We deduce its non-existence in the absence of the effects of surface tension, provided that gravity acts in a direction opposite to what is physically realistic.
We consider a fifth-order Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation which arises as a two-dimensional model in the classical water-wave problem. This equation possesses a family of generalized line solitary waves which decay exponentially to periodic waves at infinity. We prove that these solitary waves are transversely spectrally unstable and that this instability is induced by the transverse instability of the periodic tails. We rely upon a detailed spectral analysis of some suitably chosen linear operators.
In this paper we show that the hydrodynamic problem for three-dimensional water waves with strong surface-tension effects admits a fully localised solitary wave which decays to the undisturbed state of the water in every horizontal direction. The proof is based upon the classical variational principle that a solitary wave of this type is a critical point of the energy subject to the constraint that the momentum is fixed. We prove the existence of a minimiser of the energy subject to the constraint that the momentum is fixed and small. The existence of a small-amplitude solitary wave is thus as…
We study the orbital instability of solitary waves for a generalized derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equation. We give sufficient conditions for instability of a two-parameter family of solitary waves in a degenerate case.
Considered herein is the integrable two-component Camassa-Holm shallow water system derived in the context of shallow water theory, which admits blow-up solutions and the solitary waves interacting like solitons. Using modulation theory, and combining the almost monotonicity of a local version of energy with the argument on the stability of a single solitary wave, we prove that the train of $N$ solitary waves, which are sufficiently decoupled, is orbitally stable in the energy space $H^1(\R)\times L^2(\R)$.
It is well known that the water-wave problem with weak surface tension has small-amplitude line solitary-wave solutions which to leading order are described by the nonlinear Schrödinger equation. The present paper contains an existence theory for three-dimensional periodically modulated solitary-wave solutions which have a solitary-wave profile in the direction of propagation and are periodic in the transverse direction; they emanate from the line solitary waves in a dimension-breaking bifurcation. In addition, it is shown that the line solitary waves are linearly unstable to long-wavelength t…
Fully localised solitary waves are travelling-wave solutions of the three-dimensional gravity-capillary water wave problem which decay to zero in every horizontal spatial direction. Their existence has been predicted on the basis of numerical simulations and model equations (in which context they are usually referred to as `lumps'), and a mathematically rigorous existence theory for strong surface tension (Bond number $β$ greater than $\frac{1}{3}$) has recently been given. In this article we present an existence theory for the physically more realistic case $0<β<\frac{1}{3}$. A classical vari…
We prove an abstract instability result for an eigenvalue problem with parameter. We apply this criterion to show the transverse linear instability of solitary waves on various examples from mathematical physics.
In this note, we define a moment of instability m(c) for internal solitary waves in continuously stratified fluids, which seems not to have been done before. To underline the suitability of the proposed moment of instability, we identify the relation m"(c)=0 as a formal Fredholm condition, and we show that m(c) displays a definite sign for small-amplitude waves.
We study the linear stability of localized modes in self-interacting spinor fields, analyzing the spectrum of the operator corresponding to linearization at solitary waves. Following the generalization of the Vakhitov--Kolokolov approach, we show that the bifurcation of real eigenvalues from the origin is completely characterized by the Vakhitov--Kolokolov condition $dQ/dω=0$ and by the vanishing of the energy functional. We give the numerical data on the linear stability in the generalized Gross--Neveu model and the generalized massive Thirring model in the charge-subcritical, critical, and s…
We consider two-dimensional solitary water waves on a shear flow with an arbitrary distribution of vorticity. Assuming that the horizontal velocity in the fluid never exceeds the wave speed and that the free surface lies everywhere above its asymptotic level, we give a very simple proof that a suitably defined Froude number $F$ must be strictly greater than the critical value $F=1$. We also prove a related upper bound on $F$, and hence on the amplitude, under more restrictive assumptions on the vorticity.
This paper considers the existence and stability properties of two-dimensional solitary waves traversing an infinitely deep body of water. We assume that above the water is vacuum, and that the waves are acted upon by gravity with surface tension effects on the air--water interface. In particular, we study the case where there is a finite dipole in the bulk of the fluid, that is, the vorticity is a sum of two weighted $δ$-functions. Using an implicit function theorem argument, we construct a family of solitary waves solutions for this system that is exhaustive in a neighborhood of $0$. Our mai…
A fundamental question in the study of water waves is the existence and stability of solitary waves. Solitary waves have been proved to exist and have been studied in many interesting situations, and often arise from the balance of different forces/factors influencing the fluid dynamics, e.g. gravity, surface tension or the fluid bottom. However, the existence of solitary waves has remained an open problem in two of the simplest cases, namely for either pure gravity waves or pure capillary waves in infinite depth. In this article we settle both of these questions in two space dimensions. Preci…
We present a general result of transverse nonlinear instability of 1-d solitary waves for Hamiltonian PDE's for both periodic or localized transverse perturbations. Our main structural assumption is that the linear part of the 1d model and the transverse perturbation "have the same sign". Our result applies to the generalized KP-I equation, the Nonlinear Schrödinger equation, the generalized Boussinesq system and the Zakharov-Kuznetsov equation and we hope that it may be useful in other contexts.
We consider linear instability of solitary waves of several classes of dispersive long wave models. They include generalizations of KDV, BBM, regularized Boussinesq equations, with general dispersive operators and nonlinear terms. We obtain criteria for the existence of exponentially growing solutions to the linearized problem. The novelty is that we dealt with models with nonlocal dispersive terms, for which the spectra problem is out of reach by the Evans function technique. For the proof, we reduce the linearized problem to study a family of nonlocal operators, which are closely related to …
We study asymptotic stability of solitary wave solutions in the one-dimensional Benney-Luke equation, a formally valid approximation for describing two-way water wave propagation. For this equation, as for the full water wave problem, the classic variational method for proving orbital stability of solitary waves fails dramatically due to the fact that the second variation of the energy-momentum functional is infinitely indefinite. We establish nonlinear stability in energy norm under the spectral stability hypothesis that the linearization admits no non-zero eigenvalues of non-negative real pa…
We consider the stability theory of solitary wave solutions for the generalized derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equation $$ i\partial_{t}u+\partial_{x}^{2}u+i|u|^{2σ}\partial_x u=0, $$ where $1<σ<2$. The equation has a two-parameter family of solitary wave solutions of the form $$ u_{ω,c}(t,x)=e^{iωt+i\frac c2(x-ct)-\frac{i}{2σ+2}\int_{-\infty}^{x-ct}φ^{2σ}_{ω,c}(y)dy}φ_{ω,c}(x-ct). $$ The stability theory in the frequency region of $|c|<2\sqrtω$ was studied previously. In this paper, we prove the instability of the solitary wave solutions in the endpoint case $c=2\sqrtω$.
We show that solitary waves for the 2D Euler-Korteweg model for capillary fluids display nonlinear instability when subjected to transverse perturbations.
We consider two- and three-dimensional gravity and gravity-capillary solitary water waves in infinite depth. Assuming algebraic decay rates for the free surface and velocity potential, we show that the velocity potential necessarily behaves like a dipole at infinity and obtain a related asymptotic formula for the free surface. We then prove an identity relating the "dipole moment" to the kinetic energy. This implies that the leading-order terms in the asymptotics are nonvanishing and in particular that the angular momentum is infinite. Lastly we prove a related integral identity which rules ou…
We consider the KP-I and gKP-I equations in $\mathbb{R}\times (\mathbb{R}/2π\mathbb{Z})$. We prove that the KdV soliton with subcritical speed $0<c<c^*$ is orbitally stable under the global KP-I flow constructed by Ionescu and Kenig \cite{IK}. For supercritical speeds $c>c^*$, in the spirit of the work by Duyckaerts and Merle \cite{DM}, we sharpen our previous instability result and construct a global solution which is different from the solitary wave and its translates and which converges to the solitary wave as time goes to infinity. This last result also holds for the gKP-I equation.
We present a method to prove nonlinear instability of solitary waves in dispersive models. Two examples are analyzed: we prove the nonlinear long time instability of the KdV solitary wave (with respect to periodic transverse perturbations) under a KP-I flow and the transverse nonlinear instability of solitary waves for the cubic nonlinear Schrödinger equation.
The aim of this work is to study solitary water wave interactions between two topographic obstacles for the forced Korteweg-de Vries equation (fKdV). Focusing on the details of the interactions, we identify regimes in which solitary wave interactions maintain two well separated crests and regimes where the number of local maxima varies according to the laws $2\rightarrow 1\rightarrow 2\rightarrow 1\rightarrow 2$ or $2\rightarrow 1\rightarrow 2$. It shows that the geometric Lax-categorization of Korteweg-de Vries (KdV) two-soliton interactions still holds for the fKdV equation.
Fully localised solitary waves are travelling-wave solutions of the three-dimensional gravity-capillary water wave problem which decay to zero in every horizontal spatial direction. Their existence for water of finite depth has recently been established, and in this article we present an existence theory for water of infinite depth. The governing equations are reduced to a perturbation of the two-dimensional nonlinear Schrödinger equation, which admits a family of localised solutions. Two of these solutions are symmetric in both horizontal directions and an application of a suitable version of…
We prove that the 2D finite depth capillary water wave equations admit no solitary wave solutions. This closes the existence/non-existence problem for solitary water waves in 2D, under the classical assumptions of incompressibility and irrotationality, and with the physical parameters being gravity, surface tension and the fluid depth.
We consider the nonlinear Dirac equation, also known as the Soler model: $i\p\sb tψ=-iα\cdot \nabla ψ+m βψ-f(ψ\sp\ast βψ) βψ$, $ψ(x,t)\in\mathbb{C}^{N}$, $x\in\mathbb{R}^n$, $n\le 3$, $f\in C\sp 2(\R)$, where $α_j$, $j = 1,...,n$, and $β$ are $N \times N$ Hermitian matrices which satisfy $α_j^2=β^2=I_N$, $α_j β+βα_j=0$, $α_j α_k + α_k α_j =2 δ_{jk} I_N$. We study the spectral stability of solitary wave solutions $ϕ(x)e^{-iωt}$. We study the point spectrum of linearizations at solitary waves that bifurcate from NLS solitary waves in the limit $ω\to m$, proving that if $k>2/n$, then one positive…
We present a large-amplitude existence theory for two-dimensional solitary waves propagating through a two layer body of water. The domain of the fluid is bounded below by an impermeable flat ocean floor and above by a free boundary at constant pressure. For any piecewise smooth upstream density distribution and laminar background current, we construct a global curve of solutions. This curve bifurcates from the background current and, following along the curve, we find waves that are arbitrarily close to having horizontal stagnation points. The small-amplitude waves are constructed using a cen…
This paper considers two-dimensional gravity solitary waves moving through a body of density stratified water lying below vacuum. The fluid domain is assumed to lie above an impenetrable flat ocean bed, while the interface between the water and vacuum is a free boundary where the pressure is constant. We prove that, for any smooth choice of upstream velocity field and density function, there exists a continuous curve of such solutions that includes large-amplitude surface waves. Furthermore, following this solution curve, one encounters waves that come arbitrarily close to possessing points of…
This paper considers two-dimensional steady solitary waves with constant vorticity propagating under the influence of gravity over an impermeable flat bed. Unlike in previous works on solitary waves, we allow for both internal stagnation points and overhanging wave profiles. Using analytic global bifurcation theory, we construct continuous curves of large-amplitude solutions. Along these curves, either the wave amplitude approaches the maximum possible value, the dimensionless wave speed becomes unbounded, or a singularity develops in a conformal map describing the fluid domain. We also show t…
We investigate the existence of solitary gravity waves traversing a two-dimensional body of water that is bounded below by a flat impenetrable ocean bed and above by a free surface of constant pressure. Our main interest is constructing waves of this form that exhibit a discontinuous distribution of vorticity. More precisely, this means that the velocity limits both upstream and downstream to a laminar flow that is merely Lipschitz continuous. We prove that, for any choice of background velocity with this regularity, there exists a global curve of solutions bifurcating from a critical laminar …
We prove an asymptotic stability result for the water wave equations linearized around small solitary waves. The equations we consider govern irrotational flow of a fluid with constant density bounded below by a rigid horizontal bottom and above by a free surface under the influence of gravity neglecting surface tension. For sufficiently small amplitude waves, with waveform well-approximated by the well-known sech-squared shape of the KdV soliton, solutions of the linearized equations decay at an exponential rate in an energy norm with exponential weight translated with the wave profile. This …
Some effects of surface tension on fully-nonlinear, long, surface water waves are studied by numerical means. The differences between various solitary waves and their interactions in subcritical and supercritical surface tension regimes are presented. Analytical expressions for new peaked travelling wave solutions are presented in the case of critical surface tension. The numerical experiments were performed using a high-accurate finite element method based on smooth cubic splines and the four-stage, classical, explicit Runge-Kutta method of order four.
The two-dimensional free-boundary problem describing steady gravity waves with vorticity on water of finite depth is considered. Under the assumption that the vorticity is a negative constant whose absolute value is sufficiently large, we construct a solution with the following properties. The corresponding flow is unidirectional at infinity and has a solitary wave of elevation as its upper boundary; under this unidirectional flow, there is a bounded domain adjacent to the bottom, which surrounds an interior stagnation point and is divided into two subdomains with opposite directions of flow b…
Of concern are traveling wave solutions for the fractional Kadomtsev--Petviashvili (fKP) equation. The existence of periodically modulated solitary wave solutions is proved by dimension breaking bifurcation. Moreover, the line solitary wave solutions and their transverse (in)stability are discussed. Analogous to the classical Kadmomtsev--Petviashvili (KP) equation, the fKP equation comes in two versions: fKP-I and fKP-II. We show that the line solitary waves of fKP-I equation are transversely linearly instable. We also perform numerical experiments to observe the (in)stability dynamics of line…
This paper sheds new light on the stability properties of solitary wave solutions associated with models of Korteweg-de Vries and Benjamin\&Bona\&Mahoney type, when the dispersion is very lower. Via an approach of compactness, analyticity and asymptotic perturbation theory, we establish sufficient conditions for the existence of exponentially growing solutions to the linearized problem and so a criterium of linear instability of solitary waves is obtained for both models. Moreover, the nonlinear stability and linear instability of the ground states solutions for both models is obtained for som…
The $2$D Benney-Luke equation is an isotropic model which describes long water waves of small amplitude in $3$D whereas the KP-II equation is a unidirectional model for long waves with slow variation in the transverse direction. In the case where the surface tension is weak or negligible, linearly stability of small line solitary waves of the $2$D Benney-Luke equation was proved by Mizumachi and Shimabukuro [Nonlinearity, 30 (2017), 3419--3465]. In this paper, we prove nonlinear stability of the line solitary waves by adopting the argument by Mizumachi ([Mem. Amer. Math. Soc. no. 1125], [Proc.…
We present an existence and stability theory for gravity-capillary solitary waves with constant vorticity on the surface of a body of water of finite depth. Exploiting a rotational version of the classical variational principle, we prove the existence of a minimiser of the wave energy $\mathcal H$ subject to the constraint $\mathcal I=2μ$, where $\mathcal I$ is the wave momentum and $0< μ\ll 1$. Since $\mathcal H$ and $\mathcal I$ are both conserved quantities a standard argument asserts the stability of the set $D_μ$ of minimisers: solutions starting near $D_μ$ remain close to $D_μ$ in a suit…
We study the variable bottom generalized Korteweg-de Vries (bKdV) equation dt u=-dx(dx^2 u+f(u)-b(t,x)u), where f is a nonlinearity and b is a small, bounded and slowly varying function related to the varying depth of a channel of water. Many variable coefficient KdV-type equations, including the variable coefficient, variable bottom KdV equation, can be rescaled into the bKdV. We study the long time behaviour of solutions with initial conditions close to a stable, b=0 solitary wave. We prove that for long time intervals, such solutions have the form of the solitary wave, whose centre and scal…
We study the stability theory of solitary wave solutions for the generalized derivative nonlinear Schrödinger equation $$ i\partial_{t}u+\partial_{x}^{2}u+i|u|^{2σ}\partial_x u=0. $$ The equation has a two-parameter family of solitary wave solutions of the form \begin{align*} ϕ_{ω,c}(x)=φ_{ω,c}(x)\exp{\big\{ i\frac c2 x-\frac{i}{2σ+2}\int_{-\infty}^{x}φ^{2σ}_{ω,c}(y)dy\big\}}. \end{align*} Here $ φ_{ω,c}$ is some real-valued function. It was proved in \cite{LiSiSu1} that the solitary wave solutions are stable if $-2\sqrt{ω}<c <2z_0\sqrt{ω}$, and unstable if $2z_0\sqrt{ω}<c <2\sqrt{ω}$ for some…
We consider the two-dimensional problem for steady water waves with vorticity on water of finite depth. While neglecting the effects of surface tension we construct connected families of large amplitude periodic waves approaching the limiting wave, which is either a solitary wave, the highest solitary wave, the highest Stokes wave or a Stokes wave with a breaking profile. In particular, when the vorticity is nonnegative we prove the existence of highest Stokes waves with an included angle of 120 degrees. In contrast to previous studies we fix the Bernoulli constant and consider the wavelength …
In this paper, we study solitary waves propagating along the surface of an infinitely deep body of water in two or three dimensions. The waves are acted upon by gravity and capillary effects are allowed --- but not required --- on the interface. We assume that the vorticity is localized in the sense that it satisfies certain moment conditions, and we permit there to be finitely many point vortices in the bulk of the fluid in two dimensions. We also consider a two-fluid model with a vortex sheet. Under mild decay assumptions, we obtain precise asymptotics for the velocity field and free surface…
In this work, we consider the following generalized Boussinesq equation \begin{align*} \partial_{t}^2u-\partial_{x}^2u+\partial_{x}^2(\partial_{x}^2u+|u|^{p}u)=0,\qquad (t,x)\in\mathbb R\times \mathbb R, \end{align*} with $0<p<\infty$. This equation has the traveling wave solutions $ϕ_ω(x-ωt)$, with the frequency $ω\in (-1,1)$ and $ϕ_ω$ satisfying \begin{align*} -\partial_{xx}ϕ_ω+(1-{ω^2})ϕ_ω-ϕ_ω^{p+1}=0. \end{align*} Bona and Sachs (1988) proved that the traveling wave $ϕ_ω(x-ωt)$ is orbitally stable when $0<p<4,$ $\frac p4<ω^2<1$. Liu (1993) proved the orbital instability under the condition…
