Linear instability of a perturbed Lamb–Oseen vortex

Abstract

Abstract This paper presents an investigation of the stability of a vortex with azimuthal velocity profile V ˉ = 1 − 1 − ε r 2 e − r 2 / r . When ε = 0, the Lamb–Oseen vortex model is recovered. Although the Lamb–Oseen vortex supports propagating waves known as Kelvin waves, the flow is stable according to Rayleigh’s circulation criterion. In this paper, on the other hand, the modified vortex profile admits linearly unstable disturbances for ε > 0 and we investigate their characteristics. These may be either axisymmetric or non-axisymmetric, but we find that the axisymmetric perturbations have the largest growth rates. When their growth rates are small, it becomes very difficult to solve the linear equation governing the axisymmetric perturbations because the eigenfunctions have a rapid exponential growth as one moves outward radially from the vortex center. To deal with such cases, a modified Riccati transformation was employed and found to be effective in solving the associated eigenvalue problem.