Transverse dynamics of two-dimensional traveling periodic gravity-capillary water waves

Abstract: We study the transverse dynamics of two-dimensional traveling periodic waves for the gravity--capillary water-wave problem. The governing equations are the Euler equations for the irrotational flow of an inviscid fluid layer with free surface under the forces of gravity and surface tension. We focus on two open sets of dimensionless parameters $(\alpha,\beta)$, where $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are the inverse square of the Froude number and the Weber number, respectively. For each arbitrary but fixed pair $(\alpha,\beta)$ in one of these sets, two-dimensional traveling periodic waves bifurcate from the trivial constant flow. In one open set we find a one-parameter family of periodic waves, whereas in the other open set we find two geometrically distinct one-parameter families of periodic waves. Starting from a transverse spatial dynamics formulation of the governing equations, we investigate the transverse linear instability of these periodic waves and the induced dimension-breaking bifurcation. The two results share a common analysis of the purely imaginary spectrum of the linearization at a periodic wave. We apply a simple general criterion for the transverse linear instability problem and a Lyapunov center theorem for the dimension-breaking bifurcation. For parameters $(\alpha,\beta)$ in the open set where there is only one family of periodic waves, we prove that these waves are linearly transversely unstable. For the other open set, we show that the waves with larger wavenumber are transversely linearly unstable. We also identify an open subset of parameters for which both families of periodic waves are tranversely linearly unstable. For each of these transversely linearly unstable periodic waves, a dimension-breaking bifurcation occurs in which three-dimensional doubly periodic waves bifurcate from the two-dimensional periodic wave.