Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2017 / iii / Paper 331 / 1 / a / i

Separate the uniform stream and an arbitrary time-dependent gauge from each velocity potential: ${\varphi }_j=U_{j}x+f_j(t)+{\varphi }_j^{\prime }$. Only gradients of the velocity potential determine the velocity field. The remote fluid must remain in its unperturbed uniform stream, soAfter fixing the harmless gauge, the nonzero-wavenumber perturbation velocity potentials themselves vanish at the corresponding infinities. Incompressible flow and irrotational flow give the Laplace equation for each perturbation. For a normal mode with $k>0$, the vertical amplitude solves ${\Phi }_j^{\prime \prime }-k^2{\Phi }_j=0$, henceThe opposite exponentials are excluded because they make the perturbation grow at infinity. It is the perturbation, rather than the total potential $U_{j}x+f_j(t)$, that decays.