arXiv subjects

Mathew A. Johnson

Publications and source records attributed to Mathew A. Johnson.

47 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2010

Metastability of solitary roll wave solutions of the St. Venant equations with viscosity

We study by a combination of numerical and analytical Evans function techniques the stability of solitary wave solutions of the St. Venant equations for viscous shallow-water flow down an incline, and related models. Our main result is to exhibit examples of metastable solitary waves for the St. Venant equations, with stable point spectrum indicating coherence of the wave profile but unstable essential spectrum indicating oscillatory convective instabilities shed in its wake. We propose a mechanism based on ``dynamic spectrum'' of the wave profile, by which a wave train of solitary pulses can stabilize each other by de-amplification of convective instabilities as they pass through successive waves. We present numerical time evolution studies supporting these conclusions, which bear also on the possibility of stable periodic solutions close to the homoclinic. For the closely related viscous Jin-Xin model, by contrast, for which the essential spectrum is stable, we show using the stability index of Gardner--Zumbrun that solitary wave pulses are always exponentially unstable, possessing point spectra with positive real part.

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arXiv2010

On the Modulation Equations and Stability of Periodic GKdV Waves via Bloch Decompositions

In this paper, we complement recent results of Bronski and Johnson and of Johnson and Zumbrun concerning the modulational stability of spatially periodic traveling wave solutions of the generalized Korteweg-de Vries equation. In this previous work it was shown by rigorous Evans function calculations that the formal slow modulation approximation resulting in the Whitham system accurately describes the spectral stability to long wavelength perturbations. Here, we reproduce this result without reference to the Evans function by using direct Bloch-expansion methods and spectral perturbation analysis. This approach has the advantage of applying also in the more general multi-periodic setting where no conveniently computable Evans function is yet devised. In particular, we complement the picture of modulational stability described by Bronski and Johnson by analyzing the projectors onto the total eigenspace bifurcating from the origin in a neighborhood of the origin and zero Floquet parameter. We show the resulting linear system is equivalent, to leading order and up to conjugation, to the Whitham system and that, consequently, the characteristic polynomial of this system agrees (to leading order) with the linearized dispersion relation derived through Evans function calculation.

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arXiv2010

Transverse Instability of Periodic Traveling Waves in the Generalized Kadomtsev-Petviashvili Equation

In this paper, we investigate the spectral instability of periodic traveling wave solutions of the generalized Korteweg-de Vries equation to long wavelength transverse perturbations in the generalized Kadomtsev-Petviashvili equation. By analyzing high and low frequency limits of the appropriate periodic Evans function, we derive an orientation index which yields sufficient conditions for such an instability to occur. This index is geometric in nature and applies to arbitrary periodic traveling waves with minor smoothness and convexity assumptions on the nonlinearity. Using the integrable structure of the ordinary differential equation governing the traveling wave profiles, we are then able to calculate the resulting orientation index for the elliptic function solutions of the Korteweg-de Vries and modified Korteweg-de Vries equations.

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arXiv2010

Nonlinear stability of periodic traveling wave solutions of viscous conservation laws in dimensions one and two

Extending results of Oh and Zumbrun in dimensions $d\ge 3$, we establish nonlinear stability and asymptotic behavior of spatially-periodic traveling-wave solutions of viscous systems of conservation laws in critical dimensions $d=1,2$, under a natural set of spectral stability assumptions introduced by Schneider in the setting of reaction diffusion equations. The key new steps in the analysis beyond that in dimensions $d\ge 3$ are a refined Green function estimate separating off translation as the slowest decaying linear mode and a novel scheme for detecting cancellation at the level of the nonlinear iteration in the Duhamel representation of a modulated periodic wave.

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arXiv2010

Nonlinear stability of periodic traveling wave solutions of systems of viscous conservation laws in the generic case

Extending previous results of Oh--Zumbrun and Johnson--Zumbrun, we show that spectral stability implies linearized and nonlinear stability of spatially periodic traveling-wave solutions of viscous systems of conservation laws for systems of generic type, removing a restrictive assumption that wave speed be constant to first order along the manifold of nearby periodic solutions.

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arXiv2009

The Transverse Instability of Periodic Waves in Zakharov-Kuznetsov Type Equations

In this paper, we investigate the instability of one-dimensionally stable periodic traveling wave solutions of the generalized Korteweg-de Vries equation to long wavelength transverse perturbations in the generalized Zakharov-Kuznetsov equation in two space dimensions. By deriving appropriate asymptotic expansions of the periodic Evans function, we derive an index which yields sufficient conditions for transverse instabilities to occur. This index is geometric in nature, and applies to any periodic traveling wave profile under some minor smoothness assumptions on the nonlinearity. We also describe the analogous theory for periodic traveling waves of the generalized Benjamin-Bona-Mahony equation to long wavelength transverse perturbations in the gBBM-Zakharov-Kuznetsov equation.

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arXiv2009

On the Stability of Periodic Solutions of the Generalized Benjamin-Bona-Mahony Equation

We study the stability of a four parameter family of spatially periodic traveling wave solutions of the generalized Benjamin-Bona-Mahony equation to two classes of perturbations: periodic perturbations with the same periodic structure as the underlying wave, and long-wavelength localized perturbations. In particular, we derive necessary conditions for spectral instability to perturbations to both classes of perturbations by deriving appropriate asymptotic expansions of the periodic Evans function, and we outline a nonlinear stability theory to periodic perturbations based on variational methods which effectively extends our periodic spectral stability results.

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arXiv2009

An index theorem for the stability of periodic traveling waves of KdV type

We consider periodic solutions to equations of Korteweg-Devries type. While the stability theory for periodic waves has received much some attention the theory is much less developed than the analogous theory for solitary wave stability, and appears to be mathematically richer. We prove an index theorem giving an exact count of the number of unstable eigenvalues of the linearized operator in terms of the number of zeros of the derivative of the traveling wave profile together with geometric information about a certain map between the constants of integration of the ordinary differential equation and the conserved quantities of the partial differential equation. This index can be regarded as a generalization of both the Sturm oscillation theorem and the classical stability theory for solitary wave solutions for equations of Korteweg-de Vries type. In the case of a polynomial nonlinearity this index, together with a related one introduced earlier by Bronski and Johnson, can be expressed in terms of derivatives of period integrals on a Riemann surface. Since these period integrals satisfy a Picard-Fuchs equation these derivatives can be expressed in terms of the integrals themselves, leading to an expression in terms of various moments of the solution. We conclude with some illustrative examples.

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arXiv2009

The Modultional Instability for a Generalized KdV Equation

We study the spectral stability of a family of periodic standing wave solutions to the generalized KdV (g-KdV) in a neighborhood of the origin in the spectral plane using what amounts to a rigorous Whitham modulation theory calculation. In particular we are interested in understanding the role played by the null directions of the linearized operator in the stability of the traveling wave to perturbations of long wavelength. A study of the normal form of the characteristic polynomial of the monodromy map (the periodic Evan's function) in a neighborhood of the origin in the spectral plane leads to two different instability indices. The first index counts modulo 2 the total number of periodic eigenvalues on the real axis. This index is a generalization of the one which governs the stability of the solitary wave. The second index provides a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a long-wavelength instability. This index is essentially the quantity calculated by Haragus and Kapitula in the small amplitude limit. Both of these quantities can be expressed in terms of the map between the constants of integration for the ordinary differential equation defining the traveling waves and the conserved quantities of the partial differential equation. These two indices together provide a good deal of information about the spectrum of the linearized operator. We sketch the connection of this calculation to a study of the linearized operator - in particular we perform a perturbation calculation in terms of the Floquet parameter. This suggests geometric interpretations attached to the vanishing of the modulational instability index previously mentioned.

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arXiv2009

Nonlinear Stability of Periodic Traveling Wave Solutions of the Generalized Korteweg-de Vries Equation

In this paper, we study the orbital stability for a four-parameter family of periodic stationary traveling wave solutions to the generalized Korteweg-de Vries equation. In particular, we derive sufficient conditions for such a solution to be orbitally stable in terms of the Hessian of the classical action of the corresponding traveling wave ordinary differential equation restricted to the manifold of periodic traveling wave solution. We show this condition is equivalent to the solution being spectrally stable with respect to perturbations of the same period in the case of the Korteweg-de Vries equation, and in neighborhoods of the homoclinic and equilibrium solutions in the case of a power-law nonlinearity.

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arXiv2007

Eigenvalue estimates for the scattering problem associated to the sine-Gordon equation

One of the difficulties associated with the scattering problems arising in connection with integrable systems is that they are frequently non-self-adjoint, making it difficult to determine where the spectrum lies. In this paper, we consider the problem of locating and counting the discrete eigenvalues associated with the scattering problem for which the sine-Gordon equation is the isospectral flow. In particular, suppose that we take an initially stationary pulse for the sine-Gordon equation, with a profile that has either one extremum point of height less than pi and topological charge 0, or is monotone with topological charge +-1. Then we show that the point spectrum lies on the unit circle and is simple. Furthermore, we give a count of the number of eigenvalues. This result is an analog of that of Klaus and Shaw for the Zakharov-Shabat scattering problem. We also relate our results, as well as those of Klaus and Shaw, to the Krein stability theory for symplectic matrices. In particular we show that the scattering problem associated to the sine-Gordon equation has a symplectic structure, and under the above conditions the point eigenvalues have a definite Krein signature, and are thus simple and lie on the unit circle.

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