A Hamiltonian approach to fairly low and fairly long gravity waves (Q1905549)

The article deals with an approximate Hamiltonian model for fairly long and fairly low gravity waves in unbounded domains. The application of methods of classical mechanics allows one to transfer some results to continuum medium. Using the Hamiltonian variational principle, the authors construct an algorithm for solving the problem, that satisfies the energy conservation law. It is shown in detail how one can reduce the problem on gravity waves with free surface to canonical Hamilton's equations. The presence of free fluid surface results in the necessity of evaluation of kinetic energy of the fluid in terms of integrals over initial unknown variable domain. Based on perturbation method, the authors construct an approximate Hamiltonian model, which is free from such shortcoming. Moreover, they show that the corresponding approximate Hamiltonian operator is positively defined, that creates essential advantages for construction of approximate models and for numerical realization. The analyzed approach is used here only for linear problems; however, there are perspectives to extend it to nonlinear models of the third order, which reflect the nonlinear dispersion properties of the investigated system.