Shear instability for stratified hydrostatic flows

CHUMAKOVA, L.; MENZAQUE, F.; MILEWSKI, P.; ROSALES, R.; TABAK, E.; TURNER, C.

COMMUNICATIONS ON PURE AND APPLIED MATHEMATICS

Año: 2008 vol. 56 p. 1 - 15

0010-3640

Stratified flows in hydrostatic balance are studied in both their multilayer and continuous formulations. A novel stability criterion is proposed for stratified flows, which re-interprets stability in terms not of growth of small perturbations, but of the well-posedness of the time evolution. This re-interpretation allows one to extend the classic results of Miles and Howard concerning steady and planar flows, to the realm of flows that are non-uniform and unsteady.