Internal doubly periodic gravity-capillary waves with vorticity

Abstract

We consider a multi-fluid system with several free interfaces. For this system we prove existence of three-dimensional steady gravity-capillary waves with non-zero vorticity. We obtain non-zero vorticity by prescribing the relative velocity fields to be Beltrami fields, for which the vorticity and velocity are parallel. The main result is a multi-parameter bifurcation result for small amplitude waves given in two variants: a first theorem guaranteeing existence under some general parameter assumptions; and a second specific but less exhaustive theorem, for which the assumptions may be explicitly verified, yielding the existence of both in-phase and off-phase motions in the different layers. The proof relies on an implicit function theorem corresponding to multi-parameter bifurcation. This theorem is presented in an appendix as an abstract result that can be applied directly to other problems.

32 pages, 4 figures