Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2020 ii Paper 4 38B i Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-09-29
Let the disturbed sheet be and take a normal mode proportional to , with . Irrotational flow and the rigid-wall condition at give perturbation velocity potentialsThe two linearized kinematic boundary conditions at areThe Unsteady Bernoulli equation gives and . Continuity of pressure therefore yields the finite-depth vortex-sheet dispersion relationor, with ,For its two roots areOne root has positive temporal growth for every , so every finite wavelength is subject to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability.