Elliptical instability of a rapidly rotating, strongly stratified fluid

DOI10.1063/1.3177354MaRDI QIDQ5304696zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors J. M. Aspden, J. Vanneste

Publication date 18 March 2010

Published in Physics of Fluids (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/0902.3565, https://www.pure.ed.ac.uk/ws/files/8207837/Elliptical_instability_of_a_rapidly_roatatnig_strongly_statified_fluid.pdf

zbMATH Keywords

flow instabilityrotational flowstratified flowvortices

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Fluid mechanics (76-XX)

Abstract: The elliptical instability of a rotating stratified fluid is examined in the regime of small Rossby number and order-one Burger number corresponding to rapid rotation and strong stratification. The Floquet problem describing the linear growth of disturbances to an unbounded, uniform-vorticity elliptical flow is solved using exponential asymptotics. The results demonstrate that the flow is unstable for arbitrarily strong rotation and stratification; in particular, both cyclonic and anticyclonic flows are unstable. The instability is weak, however, with growth rates that are exponentially small in the Rossby number. The analytic expression obtained for the growth rate elucidates its dependence on the Burger number and on the eccentricity of the elliptical flow. It explains in particular the weakness of the instability of cyclonic flows, with growth rates that are only a small fraction of those obtained for the corresponding anticyclonic flows. The asymptotic results are confirmed by numerical solutions of Floquet problem.

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Cited in

(7)

• Strato-hyperbolic instability: a new mechanism of instability in stably stratified vortices
• Modal stability analysis of arrays of stably stratified vortices
• Parametric instability and wave turbulence driven by tidal excitation of internal waves
• Bending and twisting instabilities of columnar elliptical vortices in a rotating strongly stratified fluid
• Stability of two-dimensional Taylor–Green vortices in rotating stratified fluids
• Stability of Stuart vortices in rotating stratified fluids
• On the inviscid instability of the 2-D Taylor-Green vortex

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