Stokes waves (Q1380883)

In this consistent paper, the author gives complete proofs of the main results about the Stokes waves problem starting with its basic formulation as a free boundary problem for a harmonic function in an unknown domain in the plane. With the assumptions that the boundary is a real analytic curve and that the complex potential must have an analytic extension across the boundary, the equations can be manipulated at will and various estimates on the wave slope and speed emerge from calculation involving the maximum principle for harmonic functions in the plane. To formulate the boundary value problem in a way which is amenable to existence theory the author uses the method of hodograph transformation to map the unknown domain occupied by the water into a fixed semi-infinite strip in a complex plane where the variable is the complex potential. So the problem is formulated as Nekrasov's integral equation in a cone in a Banach space of continuous functions. A global existence theory for Nekrasov's integral equation is obtained from classical global bifurcation theory. Then the behaviour of large amplitude Stokes waves is examined. Finally the paper gives a very brief description of how the present understanding fails to predict numerically observed secondary and subsequent bifurcation.