Three-Dimensional Instability of Finite-Amplitude Water Waves

1981/03/30 by J. McLean, Young James C., David U. Martin +2 · 2 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Mathematics · #Ocean Waves and Remote Sensing #Coastal and Marine Dynamics #Oceanographic and Atmospheric Processes #Amplitude #Instability #Physics #Computation #Deep water #Gravitational wave #Mechanics #Classical mechanics #Gravity wave #Quantum electrodynamics #Geology #Optics #Mathematics #Quantum mechanics

paper · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.46.817

openalex publication_date 1981/03/30 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/11

Abstract

Computations based on the full water-wave equations reveal that there are two distinct types of instabilities for gravity waves of finite amplitude on deep water. One is predominantly two dimensional and is related to all the known results for special cases. The other is predominantly three dimensional and becomes dominant when the wave steepness is sufficiently large.

Citations

• Computer extension and analytic continuation of Stokes’ expansion for gravity waves
• Steep gravity waves in water of arbitrary uniform depth
• The disintegration of wave trains on deep water Part 1. Theory
• XXXVIII. On periodic irrotational waves at the surface of deep water

Cited by

• NONLINEAR GRAVITY AND CAPILLARY-GRAVITY WAVES
• Stokes wave [wikipedia]