Trapped internal waves over topography: Non-Boussinesq effects, symmetry breaking and downstream recovery jumps

Abstract

It is well-known that in certain parameter regimes, the steady flow of a density stratified fluid over topography can yield large amplitude internal waves. We discuss an embedded boundary method to solve the Dubreil-Jacotin-Long (DJL) equation for steady-state, supercritical flows over topography in an inviscid, stratified fluid. The DJL equation is equivalent to the full set of stratified steady Euler equations and thus the waves we compute are exact nonlinear solutions. The numerical method presented yields far better scaling with increase in grid size than other iterative methods that have been used to solve this equation, and this in turn allows for a more thorough exploration of parameter space. For waves under the Boussinesq approximation, we contrast the properties of trapped waves over hill-like and valley-like topography, finding that the symmetry of freely propagating solitary waves when the stratification is reflected across the middepth is not present for trapped waves. We extend the derivation of the DJL equation to the non-Boussinesq case and discuss the effect of the new, non-Boussinesq terms on the structure of the trapped waves, finding that the sharp transition between large and small amplitude waves observed under the Boussinesq approximation is much more gradual when the Boussinesq approximation is relaxed. Finally, we demonstrate the existence of asymmetric steady states over hill-like topography where the flow is subcritical upstream of the topography but transitions to supercritical somewhere over the hill. Waves in this new class of exact solutions are related to so-called downstream recovery jumps predicted on the basis of hydrostatic (shallow water) theories, but when breaking does not occur the recovery jump does not stop propagating downstream and an asymmetric state across the topography maximum is reached for long times.