On reduced equations in the Hamiltonian theory of weakly nonlinear surface waves

Abstract

Many studies of weakly nonlinear surface waves are based on so-called reduced integrodifferential equations. One of these is the widely used Zakharov four-wave equation for purely gravity waves. But the reduced equations now in use are not Hamiltonian despite the Hamiltonian structure of exact water wave equations. This is entirely due to shortcomings of their derivation. The classical method of canonical transformations, generalized to the continuous case, leads automatically to reduced equations with Hamiltonian structure. In this paper, attention is primarily paid to the Hamiltonian reduced equation describing the combined effects of four- and five-wave weakly nonlinear interactions of purely gravity waves. In this equation, for brevity called five-wave, the non-resonant quadratic, cubic and fourth-order nonlinear terms are eliminated by suitable canonical transformation. The kernels of this equation and the coefficients of the transformation are expressed in explicit form in terms of expansion coefficients of the gravity-wave Hamiltonian in integral-power series in normal variables. For capillary–gravity waves on a fluid of finite depth, expansion of the Hamiltonian in integral-power series in a normal variable with accuracy up to the fifth-order terms is also given.