On the transverse stability of smooth solitary waves in a two-dimensional Camassa-Holm equation

Abstract

We consider the propagation of smooth solitary waves in a two-dimensional generalization of the Camassa--Holm equation. We show that transverse perturbations to one-dimensional solitary waves behave similarly to the KP-II theory. This conclusion follows from our two main results: (i) the double eigenvalue of the linearized equations related to the translational symmetry breaks under a transverse perturbation into a pair of the asymptotically stable resonances and (ii) small-amplitude solitary waves are linearly stable with respect to transverse perturbations.

26 pages, 1 figure