Hamiltonian aspects of three-layer stratified fluids (Q1984007)

The authors study some structural properties of three-layer stratified incompressible Euler flows in the long-wave regime, especially for the case of a rigid upper lid constraint. The authors deduce that the long-wave dispersionless limit satisfies a system of quasi-linear equations, and further prove explicitly that the reduced system does not admit Riemann invariants. The phenomenon of effective pressure differentials implying the ``paradox'' of non-conservation of the horizontal momentum was first noticed by \textit{R. Camassa} et al. [J. Fluid Mech. 695, 330--340 (2012; Zbl 1250.76049)] in the two-layer case, and is proved to persist for an \(n\)-layered situation, with $n\geq 3$, and even be enhanced in some sense, for zero initial velocities, by scaling linearly with density differences, as opposed to quadratically as in the two-layer case. A natural Hamiltonian structure on the configuration spaces of effective three-layered fluid motions was derived by means of a geometric reduction process from the full two-dimensional Hamiltonian structure introduced by \textit{T. B. Benjamin} [J. Fluid Mech. 165, 445--474 (1986; Zbl 0595.76023)]. By using the canonical formalism, the Boussinesq limit and its solution with some special symmetries are discussed.