Oscillatory spatially periodic weakly nonlinear gravity waves on deep water

A weakly nonlinear Hamiltonian model is derived from the exact water wave equations to study the time evolution of spatially periodic wavetrains. The model assumes that the spatial spectrum of the wavetrain is formed by only three free waves, i.e. a carrier and two side bands. The model has the same symmetries and invariances as the exact equations. As a result, it is found that not only the permanent form travelling waves and their stability are important in describing the time evolution of the waves, but also a new kind of family of solutions which has two basic frequencies plays a crucial role in the dynamics of the waves. It is also shown that three is the minimum number of free waves which is necessary to have chaotic behaviour of water waves

Decay of travelling waves in dissipative Poisson systems

In many finite and infinite dimensional systemslow-dimensional behaviour is often observed. That is to say, the dynamics, observed experimentally or numerically, looks as if it can be described (approximately) with only a few essential parameters. Choosing the correct set of such ldquorobust observablesrdquo is an essential ingredient of a successful low dimensional description. This paper reports on a specific example of a more general approach that aims at describing certain (low dimensional) phenomena in (high dimensional) damped/driven equations with parameters that are essentially determined from the underlying conservative part of the equation. In particular, a Hamiltonian or a Poisson structure of the conservative part is exploited to find (characterize) families of exact solutions. These solutions are then used as the ldquobase functionsrdquo with the aid of which the solutions of the disturbed system are approximated. This approximation is accomplished using the parameters that characterize the family as variables that depend on time. In this paper, this procedure is applied to a class of systems which admit travelling waves when dissipation is ignored

Conservation laws, exact travelling waves and modulation instability for an extended nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation

We study various properties of solutions of an extended nonlinear Schr\"{o}dinger (ENLS) equation, which arises in the context of geometric evolution problems -- including vortex filament dynamics -- and governs propagation of short pulses in optical fibers and nonlinear metamaterials. For the periodic initial-boundary value problem, we derive conservation laws satisfied by local in time, weak $H^2$ (distributional) solutions, and establish global existence of such weak solutions. The derivation is obtained by a regularization scheme under a balance condition on the coefficients of the linear and nonlinear terms -- namely, the Hirota limit of the considered ENLS model. Next, we investigate conditions for the existence of traveling wave solutions, focusing on the case of bright and dark solitons. The balance condition on the coefficients is found to be essential for the existence of exact analytical soliton solutions; furthermore, we obtain conditions which define parameter regimes for the existence of traveling solitons for various linear dispersion strengths. Finally, we study the modulational instability of plane waves of the ENLS equation, and identify important differences between the ENLS case and the corresponding NLS counterpart. The analytical results are corroborated by numerical simulations, which reveal notable differences between the bright and the dark soliton propagation dynamics, and are in excellent agreement with the analytical predictions of the modulation instability analysis.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures. To be published in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and Theoretica

Falling liquid films with blowing and suction

Flow of a thin viscous film down a flat inclined plane becomes unstable to long wave interfacial fluctuations when the Reynolds number based on the mean film thickness becomes larger than a critical value (this value decreases as the angle of inclination with the horizontal increases, and in particular becomes zero when the plate is vertical). Control of these interfacial instabilities is relevant to a wide range of industrial applications including coating processes and heat or mass transfer systems. This study considers the effect of blowing and suction through the substrate in order to construct from first principles physically realistic models that can be used for detailed passive and active control studies of direct relevance to possible experiments. Two different long-wave, thin-film equations are derived to describe this system; these include the imposed blowing/suction as well as inertia, surface tension, gravity and viscosity. The case of spatially periodic blowing and suction is considered in detail and the bifurcation structure of forced steady states is explored numerically to predict that steady states cease to exist for sufficiently large suction speeds since the film locally thins to zero thickness giving way to dry patches on the substrate. The linear stability of the resulting nonuniform steady states is investigated for perturbations of arbitrary wavelengths, and any instabilities are followed into the fully nonlinear regime using time-dependent computations. The case of small amplitude blowing/suction is studied analytically both for steady states and their stability. Finally, the transition between travelling waves and non-uniform steady states is explored as the suction amplitude increases

A KdV-like advection-dispersion equation with some remarkable properties

We discuss a new non-linear PDE, u_t + (2 u_xx/u) u_x = epsilon u_xxx, invariant under scaling of dependent variable and referred to here as SIdV. It is one of the simplest such translation and space-time reflection-symmetric first order advection-dispersion equations. This PDE (with dispersion coefficient unity) was discovered in a genetic programming search for equations sharing the KdV solitary wave solution. It provides a bridge between non-linear advection, diffusion and dispersion. Special cases include the mKdV and linear dispersive equations. We identify two conservation laws, though initial investigations indicate that SIdV does not follow from a polynomial Lagrangian of the KdV sort. Nevertheless, it possesses solitary and periodic travelling waves. Moreover, numerical simulations reveal recurrence properties usually associated with integrable systems. KdV and SIdV are the simplest in an infinite dimensional family of equations sharing the KdV solitary wave. SIdV and its generalizations may serve as a testing ground for numerical and analytical techniques and be a rich source for further explorations.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, corrected sign typo in KdV Lagrangian above equation 3

Standing and travelling waves in cylindrical Rayleigh-Benard convection

The Boussinesq equations for Rayleigh-Benard convection are simulated for a cylindrical container with an aspect ratio near 1.5. The transition from an axisymmetric stationary flow to time-dependent flows is studied using nonlinear simulations, linear stability analysis and bifurcation theory. At a Rayleigh number near 25,000, the axisymmetric flow becomes unstable to standing or travelling azimuthal waves. The standing waves are slightly unstable to travelling waves. This scenario is identified as a Hopf bifurcation in a system with O(2) symmetry

Nonlinear waves in Newton's cradle and the discrete p-Schroedinger equation

We study nonlinear waves in Newton's cradle, a classical mechanical system consisting of a chain of beads attached to linear pendula and interacting nonlinearly via Hertz's contact forces. We formally derive a spatially discrete modulation equation, for small amplitude nonlinear waves consisting of slow modulations of time-periodic linear oscillations. The fully-nonlinear and unilateral interactions between beads yield a nonstandard modulation equation that we call the discrete p-Schroedinger (DpS) equation. It consists of a spatial discretization of a generalized Schroedinger equation with p-Laplacian, with fractional p>2 depending on the exponent of Hertz's contact force. We show that the DpS equation admits explicit periodic travelling wave solutions, and numerically find a plethora of standing wave solutions given by the orbits of a discrete map, in particular spatially localized breather solutions. Using a modified Lyapunov-Schmidt technique, we prove the existence of exact periodic travelling waves in the chain of beads, close to the small amplitude modulated waves given by the DpS equation. Using numerical simulations, we show that the DpS equation captures several other important features of the dynamics in the weakly nonlinear regime, namely modulational instabilities, the existence of static and travelling breathers, and repulsive or attractive interactions of these localized structures