On the Benjamin--Lighthill conjecture for water waves with vorticity

Abstract

We consider the nonlinear problem of steady gravity-driven waves on the free surface of a two-dimensional flow of an incompressible fluid (say, water). The flow is assumed to be unidirectional of finite depth and the water motion is supposed to be rotational. Our aim is to verify the Benjamin--Lighthill conjecture for flows whose total head (Bernoulli's constant) is close to the critical one; the latter is determined by the vorticity distribution so that no horizontal shear flows exist for smaller values of the total head.