A Gauge Theory for Shallow Water

Abstract: The shallow water equations describe the horizontal flow of a thin layer of fluid with varying height. We show that the equations can be rewritten as a d=2+1 dimensional gauge theory with a Chern-Simons term. The theory contains two Abelian gauge fields, corresponding to the conserved height and conserved vorticity of the fluid. In a certain linearised approximation, the shallow water equations reduce to relativistic Maxwell-Chern-Simons theory. This describes Poincar\'e waves. The chiral edge modes of the theory are identified as coastal Kelvin waves.