Titre/Title :
The effect of rotation on internal solitary waves
Contact :
Louis Gostiaux
Résumé/Abstract :
Internal solitary waves of large amplitudes are ubiquitous in the coastal ocean, and there have been many observations, numerical simulations and analytical studies. In this oceanic context, one key issue concerning their long-time behaviour is the role of the background earth’s rotation. Although it has been known for some time that such rotation tends to convert internal solitary waves into trailing inertial-gravity waves
the time-scale for this process and the eventual wave structure is not well understood. However, recently some numerical simulations for a two-layer model, and an analytical theory for a weakly nonlinear model equation, have suggested the eventual emergence of a wave packet with a distinctive carrier wavenumber (associated with the maximum allowed group velocity) and envelope solitary wave profile. In this talk, we will review this topic, report on these recent theoretical results, and describe an ongoing experiment on the Coriolis platform.