Global bifurcation and highest waves on water of finite depth

Abstract

We consider the two-dimensional problem for steady water waves with vorticity on water of finite depth. While neglecting the effects of surface tension we construct connected families of large amplitude periodic waves approaching the limiting wave, which is either a solitary wave, the highest solitary wave, the highest Stokes wave or a Stokes wave with a breaking profile. In particular, when the vorticity is nonnegative we prove the existence of highest Stokes waves with an included angle of 120 degrees. In contrast to previous studies we fix the Bernoulli constant and consider the wavelength as a bifurcation parameter, which guarantees that the limiting wave has a finite depth. In fact, this is the first rigorous proof of the existence of extreme Stokes waves with vorticity on water of finite depth. Beside the existence of highest waves we provide a new result about the regularity of Stokes waves of arbitrary amplitude (including extreme waves). Furthermore, we prove several new facts about steady waves, such as a lower bound for the wavelength of Stokes waves, while also eliminate a possibility of the wave breaking for waves with non-negative vorticity.