On the Smallness Condition in Linear Inviscid Damping: Monotonicity and Resonance Chains

Abstract

We consider the linearized Euler equations around a smooth, bilipschitz shear profile $U(y)$ on ${\mathbb{T}}_L\times \mathbb{R}$. We construct an explicit flow which exhibits linear inviscid damping for $L$ sufficiently small, but for which damping fails if $L$ is large. In particular, similar to the instability results for convex profiles for a shear flow being bilipschitz is not sufficient for linear inviscid damping to hold. Instead of an eigenvalue-based argument the underlying mechanism here is shown to be based on a new cascade of resonances moving to higher and higher frequencies in $y$, which is distinct from the echo chain mechanism in the nonlinear problem.

14 pages