Stability of Vortex Patches in Channels

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate the orbital stability of vortex patches for the two-dimensional incompressible Euler equations in both a class of domains that satisfy the ``weak finite volume condition" and a strip of arbitrary width. We establish that for suitable parameters $(μ,λ)$, the penalized kinetic energy functional admits a minimizer, and that every such minimizer satisfies the elliptic equation $ω= λ(ψ- W x_2 - γ)_+$. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the set of minimizers is orbitally stable under the Eulerian dynamics. This work extends the variational framework developed by Abe and Choi to domains that lack both spatial scaling invariance and horizontal translation invariance. The absence of these properties introduces substantial difficulties in the proof, as classical rearrangement and scaling arguments are no longer applicable. We overcome these obstacles by comparing the Green's function with that of the half-plane and exploiting the decay condition to formulate a concentration-compactness argument that ultimately yields the desired stability result.