arXiv subjects

Samuel Walsh

Publications and source records attributed to Samuel Walsh.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Global bifurcation of hollow vortex streets

Vortex streets are periodic configurations of vortices propagating through an irrotational flow. In this paper, we study streets of hollow vortices, which are solutions to the free boundary $2$-d irrotational incompressible Euler equations. Each vortex core is a region of constant pressure in the complement of the fluid domain with a nonzero circulation around it. We prove that any non-degenerate singly-periodic point vortex configuration can be ``desingularized'' to create a global curve of solutions to the steady hollow vortex street problem, and we further characterize the types of singular behavior that can develop as one transverses the curve to its extreme. As specific examples, we study von K\'arm\'an vortex streets, translating vortex arrays, and a two-pair (2P) configuration. Our method is based on analytic global bifurcation theory and adapts the desingularization technique of Chen, Walsh, and Wheeler to the periodic setting.

math.AP↗

arXiv2025

Extreme internal waves: gravity currents and overturning fronts

Hydrodynamic bores are front-type traveling wave solutions to the two-layer free boundary Euler equations in two dimensions. The velocity field in each layer is assumed to be incompressible and irrotational, and it limits to distinct laminar flows upstream and downstream. Rigid horizontal boundaries confine the fluids from above and below. A constant gravitational force acts on the waves, but surface tension is neglected. It was recently shown by the authors that there exist two large-amplitude families of hydrodynamic bores: a curve of depression bores and a curve of elevation bores. We now prove that in the limit along the elevation bore family, the solutions must overturn: the interface separating the layers develops a vertical tangent. This type of behavior was first observed over 45 years ago in numerical computations of internal gravity waves and gravity water waves with vorticity. Despite considerable progress over the past decade in constructing families of water waves that potentially overturn, a proof that overturning definitively occurs has been stubbornly elusive. We further show that in the limit along the depression bore family, either overturning occurs or the solutions converge to a gravity current: the free boundary contacts the upper wall and the relative velocity in the upper fluid is stagnant. We also determine the contact angle between the interface and the rigid barrier for the limiting gravity current, giving the first rigorous confirmation of a conjecture of von K\'arm\'an. The resolutions of these questions in the specific case of hydrodynamic bores is accomplished through the use of novel geometric analysis techniques, including bounds on the decay of the velocity field near a hypothetical double stagnation point. These ideas may have broader applications to bifurcation theoretic studies of large-amplitude waves.

math.AP↗

arXiv2025

Finite-time self-similar implosion of hollow vortices

In this paper, we consider the finite-time blowup of hollow vortices. These are solutions of the two-dimensional Euler equations for which the fluid domain is the complement of finitely many Jordan curves $\Gamma_1, \ldots, \Gamma_M$, and such that the flow is irrotational and incompressible, but with a nonzero circulation around each boundary component. The region bounded by $\Gamma_k$ is a ``vortex core'', modeled as a bubble of ideal gas: the pressure is constant in space and inversely proportional to the area of the vortex. This can be thought of as the isobaric approximation assuming isothermal flow. Our results come in two parts. There exist explicit families of purely circular rotating and imploding hollow vortices. Implosion means more precisely that the vortex core shrinks to the origin in finite time, while the absolute value of the pressure simultaneously diverges to infinity. We prove that for any $m \geq 2$, there exist near-circular $m$-fold symmetric rotating hollow vortices. By contrast, for all $m \geq 2$, the purely circular imploding vortices are locally unique among all collapsing vortices with uniform velocity at infinity. The second part concerns configurations of multiple hollow vortices. The existence of configurations of point vortices that collapse into a common point in finite time is classical. We prove that generically, these can be desingularized to yield families of hollow vortex configurations exhibiting self-similar finite-time implosion. Specific examples of an imploding trio and quartet of hollow vortices are given.

math.AP↗

arXiv2024

Vortex-carrying solitary gravity waves of large amplitude

In this paper, we study two-dimensional traveling waves in finite-depth water that are acted upon solely by gravity. We prove that, for any supercritical Froude number (non-dimensionalized wave speed), there exists a continuous one-parameter family $\mathcal{C}$ of solitary waves in equilibrium with a submerged point vortex. This family bifurcates from an irrotational uniform flow, and, at least for large Froude numbers, extends up to the development of a surface singularity. These are the first rigorously constructed gravity wave-borne point vortices without surface tension, and notably our formulation allows the free surface to be overhanging. We also provide a numerical bifurcation study of traveling periodic gravity waves with submerged point vortices, which strongly suggests that some of these waves indeed overturn. Finally, we prove that at generic solutions on $\mathcal{C}$ $\unicode{x2013}$ including those that are large amplitude or even overhanging $\unicode{x2013}$ the point vortex can be desingularized to obtain solitary waves with a submerged hollow vortex. Physically, these can be thought of as traveling waves carrying spinning bubbles of air.

math.AP↗

arXiv2023

Desingularization and global continuation for hollow vortices

A hollow vortex is a region of constant pressure bounded by a vortex sheet and suspended inside a perfect fluid; it can therefore be interpreted as a spinning bubble of air in water. This paper gives a general method for desingularizing non-degenerate steady point vortex configurations into collections of steady hollow vortices. Our machinery simultaneously treats the translating, rotating, and stationary regimes. Through global bifurcation theory, we further obtain maximal curves of solutions that continue until the onset of a singularity. As specific examples, we give the first existence theory for co-rotating hollow vortex pairs and stationary hollow vortex tripoles, as well as a new construction of Pocklington's classical co-translating hollow vortex pairs. All of these families extend into the non-perturbative regime, and we obtain a rather complete characterization of the limiting behavior along the global bifurcation curve.

math.AP↗

arXiv2022

Rigidity of three-dimensional internal waves with constant vorticity

This paper studies the structural implications of constant vorticity for steady three-dimensional internal water waves. It is known that in many physical regimes, water waves beneath vacuum that have constant vorticity are necessarily two dimensional. The situation is more subtle for internal waves that traveling along the interface between two immiscible fluids. When the layers have the same density, there is a large class of explicit steady waves with constant vorticity that are three-dimensional in that the velocity field and pressure depend on one horizontal variable while the interface is an arbitrary function of the other. We prove the following rigidity result: every three-dimensional traveling internal wave with bounded velocity for which the vorticities in the upper and lower layers are nonzero, constant, and parallel must belong to this family. If the densities in each layer are distinct, then in fact the flow is fully two dimensional.

math.AP↗

arXiv2021

Traveling water waves -- the ebb and flow of two centuries

This survey covers the mathematical theory of steady water waves with an emphasis on topics that are at the forefront of current research. These areas include: variational characterizations of traveling water waves; analytical and numerical studies of periodic waves with critical layers that may overhang; existence, nonexistence, and qualitative theory of solitary waves and fronts; traveling waves with localized vorticity or density stratification; and waves in three dimensions.

math.AP↗

arXiv2021

Orbital stability of internal waves

This paper studies the nonlinear stability of capillary-gravity waves propagating along the interface dividing two immiscible fluid layers of finite depth. The motion in both regions is governed by the incompressible and irrotational Euler equations, with the density of each fluid being constant but distinct. A diverse collection of small-amplitude solitary wave solutions for this system have been constructed by several authors in the case of strong surface tension (as measured by the Bond number) and slightly subcritical Froude number. We prove that all of these waves are (conditionally) orbitally stable in the natural energy space. Moreover, the trivial solution is shown to be conditionally stable when the Bond and Froude numbers lie in a certain unbounded parameter region. For the near critical surface tension regime, we prove that one can infer conditional orbital stability or orbital instability of small-amplitude traveling waves solutions to the full Euler system from considerations of a dispersive PDE model equation. These results are obtained by reformulating the problem as an infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian system, then applying a version of the Grillakis--Shatah--Strauss method recently introduced by Varholm, Wahl\'en, and Walsh. A key part of the analysis consists of computing the spectrum of the linearized augmented Hamiltonian at a shear flow or small-amplitude wave. For this, we generalize an idea used by Mielke to treat capillary-gravity water waves beneath vacuum.

math.AP↗

arXiv2020

Global bifurcation of anti-plane shear fronts

We consider anti-plane shear deformations of an incompressible elastic solid whose reference configuration is an infinite cylinder with a cross section that is unbounded in one direction. For a class of generalized neo-Hookean strain energy densities and live body forces, we construct unbounded curves of front-type solutions using global bifurcation theory. Some of these curves contain solutions with deformations of arbitrarily large magnitude.

math.AP↗

arXiv2020

Large-amplitude internal fronts in two-fluid systems

In this announcement, we report results on the existence of families of large-amplitude internal hydrodynamic bores. These are traveling front solutions of the full two-phase incompressible Euler equation in two dimensions. The fluids are bounded above and below by flat horizontal walls and acted upon by gravity. We obtain continuous curves of solutions to this system that bifurcate from the trivial solution where the interface is flat. Following these families to the their extreme, the internal interface either overturns, comes into contact with the upper wall, or develops a highly degenerate "double stagnation" point. Our construction is made possible by a new abstract machinery for global continuation of monotone front-type solutions to elliptic equations posed on infinite cylinders. This theory is quite robust and, in particular, can treat fully nonlinear equations as well as quasilinear problems with transmission boundary conditions.

math.AP↗

arXiv2020

Global bifurcation for monotone fronts of elliptic equations

In this paper, we present two results on global continuation of monotone front-type solutions to elliptic PDEs posed on infinite cylinders. This is done under quite general assumptions, and in particular applies even to fully nonlinear equations as well as quasilinear problems with transmission boundary conditions. Our approach is rooted in the analytic global bifurcation theory of Dancer and Buffoni--Toland, but extending it to unbounded domains requires contending with new potential limiting behavior relating to loss of compactness. We obtain an exhaustive set of alternatives for the global behavior of the solution curve that is sharp, with each possibility having a direct analogue in the bifurcation theory of second-order ODEs. As a major application of the general theory, we construct global families of internal hydrodynamic bores. These are traveling front solutions of the full two-phase Euler equation in two dimensions. The fluids are confined to a channel that is bounded above and below by rigid walls, with incompressible and irrotational flow in each layer. Small-amplitude fronts for this system have been obtained by several authors. We give the first large-amplitude result in the form of continuous curves of elevation and depression bores. Following the elevation curve to its extreme, we find waves whose interfaces either overturn (develop a vertical tangent) or become exceptionally singular in that the flow in both layers degenerates at a single point on the boundary. For the curve of depression waves, we prove that either the interface overturns or it comes into contact with the upper wall.

math.AP↗

arXiv2019

Smooth stationary water waves with exponentially localized vorticity

We study stationary capillary-gravity waves in a two-dimensional body of water that rests above a flat ocean bed and below vacuum. This system is described by the Euler equations with a free surface. Our main result states that there exist large families of such waves that carry finite energy and exhibit an exponentially localized distribution of (nontrivial) vorticity. This is accomplished by combining ideas drawn from the theory of spike-layer solutions to singularly perturbed elliptic equations, with techniques from the study of steady solutions of the water wave problem.

math.AP↗

arXiv2019

Center manifolds without a phase space for quasilinear problems in elasticity, biology, and hydrodynamics

In this paper, we present a novel center manifold reduction theorem for quasilinear elliptic equations posed on infinite cylinders. This is done without a phase space in the sense that we avoid explicitly reformulating the PDE as an evolution problem. Under suitable hypotheses, the resulting center manifold is finite dimensional and captures all sufficiently small bounded solutions. Compared with classical methods, the reduced ODE on the manifold is more directly related to the original physical problem and also easier to compute. The analysis is conducted directly in H\"older spaces, which is often desirable for elliptic equations. We then use this machinery to construct small bounded solutions to a variety of systems. These include heteroclinic and homoclinic solutions of the anti-plane shear problem from nonlinear elasticity; exact slow moving invasion fronts in a two-dimensional Fisher--KPP equation; and hydrodynamic bores with vorticity in a channel. The last example is particularly interesting in that we find solutions with critical layers and distinctive "half cat's eye" streamline patterns.

math.AP↗

arXiv2018

On the stability of solitary water waves with a point vortex

This paper investigates the stability of traveling wave solutions to the free boundary Euler equations with a submerged point vortex. We prove that sufficiently small-amplitude waves with small enough vortex strength are conditionally orbitally stable. In the process of obtaining this result, we develop a quite general stability/instability theory for bound state solutions of a large class of infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian systems in the presence of symmetry. This is in the spirit of the seminal work of Grillakis, Shatah, and Strauss, but with hypotheses that are relaxed in a number of ways necessary for the point vortex system, and for other hydrodynamical applications more broadly. In particular, we are able to allow the Poisson map to have merely dense range, as opposed to being surjective, and to be state-dependent. As a second application of the general theory, we consider a family of nonlinear dispersive PDEs that includes the generalized KdV and Benjamin--Ono equations. The stability/instability of solitary waves for these systems has been studied extensively, notably by Bona, Souganidis, and Strauss, who used a modification of the GSS method. We provide a new, more direct proof of these results that follows as a straightforward consequence of our abstract theory. At the same time, we extend them to fractional order dispersive equations.

math.AP↗

arXiv2017

Solitary water waves with discontinuous vorticity

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 flow and including waves arbitrarily close to having stagnation points. Each of these waves has an axis of even symmetry, and the height of their streamlines above the bed decreases monotonically as one moves to the right of the crest.

math.AP↗

arXiv2017

Existence, nonexistence, and asymptotics of deep water solitary waves with localized vorticity

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, and relate this to global properties of the wave. For instance, we rule out the existence of waves whose free surface elevations have a single sign and of vortex sheets with finite angular momentum. Building on the work of Shatah, Walsh, and Zeng, we also prove the existence of families of two-dimensional capillary-gravity waves with compactly supported vorticity satisfying the above assumptions. For these waves, we further show that the free surface is positive in a neighborhood of infinity, and that the asymptotics at infinity are linked to the net vorticity.

math.AP↗

arXiv2016

Existence and qualitative theory for stratified solitary water waves

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 horizontal stagnation. We also provide a number of results characterizing the qualitative features of solitary stratified waves. In part, these include bounds on the wave speed from above and below, some of which are new even for constant density flow; an a priori bound on the velocity field and lower bound on the pressure; a proof of the nonexistence of monotone bores in this physical regime; and a theorem ensuring that all supercritical solitary waves of elevation have an axis of even symmetry.

math.AP↗

arXiv2015

Pressure transfer functions for interfacial fluid problems

We make a consistent derivation, from the governing equations, of the pressure transfer function in the small-amplitude Stokes wave regime and the hydrostatic approximation in the small-amplitude solitary water wave regime, in the presence of a background shear flow. The results agree with the well-known formulae in the zero vorticity case,but they incorporate the effects of vorticity through solutions to the Rayleigh equation. We extend the results to permit continuous density stratification and to internal waves between two constant-density fluids. Several examples are discussed.

math.AP↗