Stationary phase of topographic internal waves Created 2026-10-06 Updated 2026-10-14
For a localized terrain source in uniform flow, the stationary phase method applied to gives phase on the downstream branch. Permanent phase lines are circular arcs, whereas an individual monochromatic component has straight phase lines. Reflected arcs use an image source; transmitted phase is continuous across the velocity interface.
A deep-water gravity wave has dispersion . An observer moving with nonzero speed samples Fourier phases . The stationary phase method selects the points where their derivatives vanish, which gives the displayed wavenumbers. Their group velocity matches the observer's velocity. For real even initial displacement with a nonzero Fourier coefficient there, the resulting signal has leading size and phase . If the initial coefficient vanishes, that leading term is absent; a stationary observer does not select a finite nonzero wavenumber by this rule.