Elliptical instability of compressible flow in ellipsoids

Abstract: Elliptical instability is due to a parametric resonance of two inertial modes in a fluid velocity field with elliptical streamlines. This flow is a simple model of the motion in a tidally deformed, rotating body. Elliptical instability typically leads to three-dimensional turbulence. The associated turbulent dissipation together with the dissipation of the large scale mode may be important for the synchronization process in stellar and planetary binary systems. In order to determine the influence of the compressibility on the stability limits of tidal flows in stars or planets, we calculate the growth rates of perturbations in flows with elliptical streamlines within ellipsoidal boundaries of small ellipticity. In addition, the influence of the orbiting frequency of the tidal perturber $\Omega_P$ and the viscosity of the fluid are taken into account.