K\'arm\'an vortex street for the generalized surface quasi-geostrophic equation

Abstract

We are concerned with the existence of periodic travelling-wave solutions for the generalized surface quasi-geostrophic (gSQG) equation(including incompressible Euler equation), known as von K\'arm\'an vortex street. These solutions are of $C^1$ type, and are obtained by studying a semilinear problem on an infinite strip whose width equals to the period. By a variational characterization of solutions, we also show the relationship between vortex size, travelling speed and street structure. In particular, the vortices with positive and negative intensity have equal or unequal scaling size in our construction, which constitutes the regularization for K\'arm\'an point vortex street.