Paper 4, Section II, E
Part II, 2015
A stationary inviscid fluid of thickness and density is located below a free surface at and above a deep layer of inviscid fluid of the same density in flowing with uniform velocity in the direction. The base velocity profile is thus
while the free surface at is maintained flat by gravity.
By considering small perturbations of the vortex sheet at of the form , calculate the dispersion relationship between and in the irrotational limit. By explicitly deriving that
deduce that the vortex sheet is unstable at all wavelengths. Show that the growth rates of the unstable modes are approximately when and when .