Superharmonic instability of nonlinear travelling wave solutions in Hamiltonian systems

Abstract

The problem of linear instability of a nonlinear travelling wave in a canonical Hamiltonian system with translational symmetry subject to superharmonic perturbations is discussed. It is shown that exchange of stability occurs when energy is stationary as a function of wave speed. This generalizes a result proved by Saffman (J. Fluid Mech., vol. 159, 1985, pp. 169–174) for travelling wave solutions exhibiting a wave profile with reflectional symmetry. The present argument remains true for any non-canonical Hamiltonian system that can be cast in Darboux form, i.e. a canonical Hamiltonian form on a submanifold defined by constraints, such as a two-dimensional surface wave on a constant shearing flow, revealing a general feature of Hamiltonian dynamics.