Hamiltonian description of shear and gravity shear waves in an ideal incompressible fluid

Abstract

Methods of studying the dynamics of wave disturbances in st;ratified shear flows of an ideal incompressible fluid are considered. The equations governing the motions of interest represent Hamilton equations and are derived by writing the velocity field in terms of Clebsch potentials. Equations written in terms of semi-Lagrangian variables are integrodifferential equations, which make it possible to consider both continuous and discontinuous solutions, as well as the cases where the parameters of the undisturbed medium are step functions. Two dynamic systems are presented. The first, canonical system of equations is most suitable for describing gravity waves in a shear flow in the case where the undisturbed medium is characterized by sharp gradients of density and flow velocity. The simplest model in which disturbances obey this system of equations is the well-known Kelvin-Helmholtz model. The second dynamic system describes, in particular, gravity-shear waves and, in the case of a homogeneous medium, shear waves in a two-dimensional flow. This system is most suitable for studying the dynamics of disturbances in models with sharp gradients of vorticity. On the basis of the approach developed in this study, the problem of the dynamics of disturbances in a flow with a continuous distribution of vorticity in a finite-thickness layer is solved. If the thickness of this layer is small compared to the characteristic wavelength and the gradient of the undisturbed vorticity in this layer is large, the solution has the form of a mode whose frequency is close to the frequency of the shear wave on a vorticity jump that would be obtained by letting the layer’s thickness approach zero. The results obtained allow, in particular, the estimation of the range of validity of finite-layer approximations for models with smooth profiles of flow and density. In addition, these results can be interpreted as the basis for the development of nonlinear aspects of the theory of hydrodynamic stability.