Impulsive Singularity in a Stratified Fluid; Diffraction by a Vertical Half-Plane

Abstract

The anisotropy created by stratification places severe restrictions, as in rotating fluids, on the construction of analytic solutions to wave-scattering problems. With emphasis on the time evolution, this paper considers a fundamental disturbance, an impulsive dipolar mass singularity in the presence of a semi-infinite vertical rigid wall. The initial Laplacian response is subsequently modified by internal waves that everywhere propagate within the local St Andrew's double cone. But the edge diffraction is found to propagate outside this cone.