On the well-posedness of Galbrun's equation

Abstract

Galbrun's equation, which is a second order partial differential equation describing the evolution of a so-called Lagrangian displacement vector field, can be used to study acoustics in background flows as well as perturbations of astrophysical flows. Our starting point for deriving Galbrun's equation is linearized Euler's equations, which is a first order system of partial differential equations that describe the evolution of the so-called Eulerian flow perturbations. Given a solution to linearized Euler's equations, we introduce the Lagrangian displacement as the solution to a linear first order partial differential equation, where the Eulerian perturbation of the fluid velocity acts as a source term. Our Lagrangian displacement solves Galbrun's equation, provided it is regular enough and that the so-called no-resonance assumption holds. In the case that the background flow is steady and tangential to the domain boundary, we prove existence, uniqueness, and continuous dependence on data of solutions to an initial–boundary-value problem for linearized Euler's equations. For such background flows, we demonstrate that the Lagrangian displacement is well-defined, that the initial datum of the Lagrangian displacement can be chosen in order to fulfill the no-resonance assumption, and derive a classical energy estimate for (sufficiently regular solutions to) Galbrun's equation. Due to the presence of zeroth order terms of indefinite signs in the equations, the energy estimate allows solutions that grow exponentially with time.