Instability of the peaked traveling wave in a local model for shallow water waves

Abstract: The traveling wave with the peaked profile arises in the limit of the family of traveling waves with the smooth profiles. We study the linear and nonlinear stability of the peaked traveling wave by using a local model for shallow water waves, which is related to the Hunter--Saxton equation. The evolution problem is well-defined in the function space $H^1_{\rm per} \cap W^{1,\infty}$, where we derive the linearized equations of motion and study the nonlinear evolution of co-periodic perturbations to the peaked periodic wave by using methods of characteristics. Within the linearized equations, we prove the spectral instability of the peaked traveling wave from the spectrum of the linearized operator in a Hilbert space, which completely covers the closed vertical strip with a specific half-width. Within the nonlinear equations, we prove the nonlinear instability of the peaked traveling wave by showing that the gradient of perturbations grow at the wave peak. By using numerical approximations of the smooth traveling waves and the spectrum of their associated linearized operator, we show that the spectral instability of the peaked traveling wave cannot be obtained in the limit along the family of the spectrally stable smooth traveling waves.