arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Andreas Klaiber.
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.
Frequently encountered in nature, internal solitary waves in stratified fluids are well-observed and well-studied from the experimental, the theoretical, and the numerical perspective. From the mathematical point of view, these waves are exact solutions of the 2D Euler equations for incompressible, inviscid fluids. Contrasting with a rich theory for their existence and the development of methods for computing these waves, their stability analysis has hardly received attention at a rigorous mathematical level. This paper proposes a new approach to the investigation of stability of internal solitary waves in a continuously stratified fluidic medium and carries out the following four steps of this approach: (I) to formulate the eigenvalue problem as an infinite-dimensional spatial-dynamical system, (II) to introduce finite-dimensional truncations of the spatial-dynamics description, (III) to demonstrate that each truncation, of any order, permits a well-defined Evans function, (IV) to prove absence of small zeros of the Evans function in the small-amplitude limit. The latter notably implies the low-frequency spectral stability of small-amplitude internal solitary waves to arbitrarily high truncation order.