Asymptotic linear stability of solitary water waves (Q338107)

The paper is devoted to stability for exact solitary wave solutions of the Euler equations, describing incompressible and irrotational motions of an inviscid, constant-density fluid of finite depth. The authors describe the studied model as follows: ``The fluid occupies a two-dimensional domain whose lower boundary is a flat rigid bottom and whose upper boundary is a free surface that forms an interface with air of negligible density and viscosity. Surface tension on the free surface is neglected.'' The following non-dimensional equations of motion are considered: \[ (\partial_t - \partial_x) \eta = - \Psi_x, \qquad (\partial_t - \partial_x) \Phi = -\gamma \eta - \frac{1}{2} (\Phi_x, \Psi_x) M(\eta_x)^{-1} (\Phi_x, \Psi_x)^T. \] Here the function \(\eta(x, t)\) describes the surface, \(\Phi(x, t)\) and \(\Psi(x, t)\) are the surface traces of the velocity potential and the steam function, respectively, \(\gamma = \text{Fr}^{-2} < 1\), where Fr is the Froude number, and \[ M(\eta_x) = \begin{pmatrix} 1 & \eta_x \\ \eta_x & -1 \end{pmatrix}. \] Note that the function \(\Psi\) is determined by the pair \((\eta, \Phi)\) by solving the Laplace equation for the steam function with the corresponding boundary conditions. The authors denote this transform as \(\mathscr H_{\eta}\): \(\Psi = \mathscr H_{\eta} \Phi\). The Euler equations are linearized about a small-amplitude solitary wave solution. The linearized equations take the form \[ 0 = (\partial_t - \partial_x) \dot \eta + \dot \Psi, \qquad 0 = (\partial_t - \partial_x) \dot \Phi + \gamma \dot \eta + u \dot \Phi_x + v \dot \Psi_x - u v \dot \eta_x, \] where the dot denotes the derivative with respect to a variational parameter, \((u, v)\) is the velocity field. Taking the relation between \(\dot \Psi\) and \((\dot \eta, \dot \Phi)\) into account and introducing the new variable \(\dot \phi = \dot \Phi - v \dot \eta\), the authors arrive at the system of equations \[ (\partial_t - \mathscr A_{\eta}) \begin{pmatrix} \dot \eta \\ \dot \phi \end{pmatrix} = 0, \quad \mathscr A_{\eta} = \begin{pmatrix}\partial_x (1 - u) & -\partial_x \mathscr H_{\eta} \\ -\gamma + (1 - u) v' & (1 - u) \partial_x \end{pmatrix}. \] It is shown that the initial value problem for the derived system is well-posed and asymptotically stable. The asymptotic stability is conditional on the absence of neutral-mode components arising from translational shifts of the solitary wave and wave-speed variation. The asymptotic stability is obtained in a norm that is weighted spatially to decay exponentially behind the wave profile. Further the weighted-norm linear stability analysis is used to obtain a spectral stability in an unweighted energy norm.