Internal Gravity Waves in a Stratified Fluid with Smoothly Varying Bottom

Abstract

The far field asymptotic of internal waves is constructed for the case when a point source of mass moves in a layer of arbitrarily stratified fluid with slowly varying bottom. The solutions obtained describe the far field both near the wave fronts of each individual mode and away from the wave fronts and are expansions in Airy or Fresnel waves with the argument determined from the solution of the corresponding eikonal equation. The amplitude of the wave field is determined from the energy conservation law along the ray tube. For model distributions of the bottom shape and the stratification describing the typical pattern of the ocean shelf exact analytic expressions are obtained for the rays, and the properties of the phase structure of the wave field are analyzed.