On high spots of the fundamental sloshing eigenfunctions in axially symmetric domains

Abstract: We investigate the classical eigenvalue problem that arises in hydrodynamics and is referred to as the sloshing problem. It describes free liquid oscillations in a liquid container W in R^3. We study the case when W is an axially symmetric, convex, bounded domain satisfying the John condition. The Cartesian coordinates (x,y,z) are chosen so that the mean free surface of the liquid lies in (x,z)-plane and y-axis is directed upwards (y-axis is the axis of symmetry). Our first result states that the fundamental eigenvalue has multiplicity 2 and for each fundamental eigenfunction phi there is a change of x,z coordinates by a rotation around y-axis so that phi is odd in x-variable. The second result of the paper gives the following monotonicity property of the fundamental eigenfunction phi. If phi is odd in x-variable then it is strictly monotonic in x-variable. This property has the following hydrodynamical meaning. If liquid oscillates freely with fundamental frequency according to phi then the free surface elevation of liquid is increasing along each line parallel to x-axis during one period of time and decreasing during the other half period. The proof of the second result is based on the method developed by D. Jerison and N. Nadirashvili for the hot spots problem for Neumann Laplacian.