Fourier stability analysis applies most directly to linear, constant-coefficient evolution schemes on uniform infinite or periodic grids. Translation invariance makes spatial shifts diagonal in discrete Fourier modes. If a one-step scheme has , substituting gives the Fourier amplification symbol
The discrete Parseval identity identifies the discrete L2 norm with the squared norm of Fourier coefficients. Uniform stability on a fixed time interval means a mesh-independent bound on for all frequencies and . In the scalar case yields contraction. More generally gives the bound and is consistent with a continuously growing well-posed equation. A fixed modulus excess independent of the step produces growth exponential in and fails this requirement.
For systems, eigenvalue moduli alone are insufficient. The uniform power bound for matrix Fourier symbols also controls eigenvector conditioning and Jordan growth. For example has only unit eigenvalues but , unbounded as at fixed . In contrast an off-diagonal entry proportional to gives growth at most proportional to , which can be legitimate. A uniformly conditioned diagonalization is a sufficient reduction to scalar modal bounds; nonnormal matrices require direct power or energy estimates. Multilevel schemes similarly require the root condition for their frequency-dependent amplification polynomial and a uniform bound on the associated companion evolution, including limiting repeated-root cases.
The simplest parabolic example is the Forward Euler method with centered spatial diffusion. For ,
is the sharp mesh-uniform contraction range. For the theta method, , giving unconditional contraction at . Implicit stability permits larger steps, but accuracy still constrains them, and the Crank-Nicolson method does not strongly damp high-frequency rough data.
For advection with , the upwind finite difference scheme gives
Thus is its contraction range. The Lax-Friedrichs scheme has and is contractive exactly when . These express a Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy condition: the numerical domain of dependence must encompass the physical one for convergence. That necessary condition is not sufficient by itself. Forward time with centered advection has and at nonzero modes. At a fixed nonzero Courant number it is unstable even if . Under the much stronger refinement , however, its powers remain bounded on fixed time intervals; the centered-advection refinement-dependent stability must not be confused with the usual hyperbolic-step instability.
Symbols also quantify dispersion and dissipation. For a mode , the argument of gives a numerical phase speed and gives damping. Upwind advection has leading artificial diffusion under fixed-Courant refinement; excessive damping smooths genuine structure, while phase error misplaces waves. Stability controls boundedness, not either error by itself. Smooth low-frequency Taylor expansions establish consistency; high-frequency modal bounds establish stability, so analyzing only fixed physical wavenumbers can miss grid-scale instabilities.
For a well-posed linear initial-value problem, the Lax equivalence theorem makes consistency plus a uniform stability estimate equivalent to convergence in the chosen norm. Boundaries and variable coefficients need extra care: Fourier diagonalization no longer handles the full update, and an interior or frozen-coefficient symbol does not prove boundary or global stability. Boundary energy estimates, a suitable matrix analysis or a separate boundary-stability argument must supplement it. Nonlinear schemes also require controls beyond this linear symbol test. These limitations delimit what the method proves rather than reducing its usefulness: in its proper setting, it turns an arbitrarily large grid evolution into exact and interpretable modal algebra.
Assume , as required for this nontrivial subcritical binomial random graph. Put . A breadth-first exploration of a binomial random graph is dominated by a Galton-Watson process whose offspring counts are independent random variables with law . If its total progeny is at least , the first offspring counts sum to at least . Their moment-generating function is bounded by that of a Poisson distribution of mean . The exponential Markov inequality, optimized at , yields
Taking for any fixed , a union bound over all starting vertices gives .
For the matching lower bound, let count tree components of order . The tree-component expectation in the Erdős-Rényi model is exactly
For , the Stirling formula gives
Choose , with . Then . Distinct overlapping vertex sets cannot both be graph components. For disjoint sets, the joint probability differs from the product only because the between-set edges were counted twice as absent. Thus
It follows that . The second moment method gives with high probability. Combining both bounds, and then taking arbitrarily small fixed , proves the sharp subcritical largest-component scale
Finally the Taylor expansion of gives . The endpoint has no edges and is excluded from this logarithmic asymptotic.
Write , , , and let be the total progeny of a binomial branching process. The preceding binomial branching survival correction gives . For a branching process conditioned on extinction, the offspring probability generating function is , with mean
for sufficiently large . Summing expected generation sizes therefore gives .
Put and let count vertices in graph components of order at least . A breadth-first exploration of a binomial random graph is dominated by . The Markov inequality applied to finite total progeny gives
Always . Since , we have and . Hence . This bound controls the expected value directly, including rare large graph components.
For the lower bound, use the breadth-first exploration of a binomial random graph with unseen vertices, active vertices and explored vertices, starting from , . Let indicate a new root. Conditional on the past, the newly discovered count has a binomial distribution . Put . The unseen-count recursion gives
Here is a martingale. Up to , martingale-difference orthogonality gives , since each conditional variance is at most and is bounded.
Take . Then , and . The Doob L2 maximal inequality implies
The Taylor expansion, uniformly for , gives . Thus throughout the integer interval for large . The new-root sum is nonnegative, so on the preceding event throughout this interval. No graph component finishes there: all these explored vertices belong to one graph component, of order at least , with high probability. Its expected value is therefore at least . Combining both inequalities proves
The barely-supercritical largest-component expectation uses both a positive exploration window and a finite-progeny bound; a bare convergence-in-probability assertion would not by itself justify this expectation.
For the binomial branching process, the offspring probability generating function is . The Galton-Watson extinction fixed point gives .
The printed finite-binomial upper bound is false without an additional asymptotic qualification. For and , solving the fixed-point equation exactly gives
For instance gives . More generally, at every fixed the Taylor expansion gives , again contradicting that upper bound for sufficiently small positive .
Here is the corrected binomial branching survival correction. The Poisson branching process of mean has branching survival probability satisfying . Expanding the logarithm gives
Thus , which implies the requested lower estimate . Since on , iteration of the two offspring probability generating functions gives .
For the actual binomial branching process, expansion of its exact fixed-point equation gives
If , all coefficients are nonnegative. Keeping the first term proves
In particular, for and this gives . The printed bounds also hold for the binomial branching process in an explicit large- regime: and . Indeed these conditions give and . In the preceding nonnegative series, evaluation at gives
The series is increasing, and its value at the actual branching survival probability is , so . Together with the lower bound already proved, this recovers in that regime. In particular it applies eventually to part (ii). The counterexample shows why a regime condition is needed for a literal finite- statement.
Figure 1.
Finite-binomial survival exceeds the printed upper bound, while Poisson survival lies between the corrected comparison bounds
. Details.
Take real field coordinates ; for complex scalar fields, split them into real and imaginary parts. Assume a smooth scalar potential and positive, canonically normalized kinetic terms in a relativistic theory. At a classical vacuum, . The Taylor expansion is
Thus the scalar mass matrix is the Hessian matrix, and its eigenvalues give squared masses of the linearized scalar excitations.
Put . Infinitesimal invariance of the scalar potential gives the identity at every field value. Differentiate with respect to and evaluate at the classical vacuum:
Every nonzero infinitesimal symmetry direction therefore lies in the kernel of the scalar mass matrix. This is the classical Goldstone theorem expressed through Goldstone directions in the scalar mass matrix.
Let be the full stabilizer subgroup of . The linear map from the Lie algebra of to field space, , has kernel equal to the Lie algebra of . The rank-nullity theorem gives
There are consequently at least massless scalar directions, namely the tangent directions to the symmetry orbit through the classical vacuum. If the intended is , these are the symmetry-required Goldstone bosons. Exactly that many massless modes occur if the scalar mass matrix is positive definite on a complement of those tangent directions. A nonsingular positive field-space kinetic metric changes normalization, but not the number of zero masses.
Two qualifications are needed for the literal assumptions. A subgroup fixing the classical vacuum need not be the full stabilizer subgroup. For example, take acting on a real triplet and with . At , the scalar mass matrix is : there are two massless modes. Choosing satisfies the printed invariance condition but would incorrectly predict three. The full stabilizer subgroup is .
Even with the full stabilizer subgroup, symmetry does not exclude an accidental massless scalar. Take rotating , with an invariant singlet , and
At the full continuous stabilizer is trivial, but the scalar mass matrix is . One zero direction is the Goldstone boson; the other is an accidental massless scalar at quadratic order. The proof establishes the symmetry-required count, not unconditional equality with the total number of massless fields. The statement concerns global internal symmetry; gauging it changes the physical interpretation through the Higgs mechanism.
Put , and use the diffusion Courant number . To discuss consistency of a numerical method, refine the mesh with a fixed positive . With , the printed update is . A Taylor expansion of a smooth exact solution, about the new time level, gives the residual divided by :
Here the heat equation implies and . Since depends only on , the leading term can vanish for every smooth solution only if . Thus the method is the Backward Euler diffusion scheme, with local truncation error
Its highest general accuracy is first order in time and second order in space, or order two in under . The coefficient of is , so it cannot cancel for any positive diffusion Courant number. This is a conclusion about the stencil actually printed: the new-time spatial difference fixes the sign of its temporal error. With sufficiently smooth compatible data, stability of a numerical method below turns the consistency estimate into an global error bound on a fixed time interval.
For fixed finite matrices, the matrix exponential and a Taylor expansion show
This agrees through degree two with , even when and do not commute. On a fixed time interval, and the telescoping identity
turns the one-step defect into global error for . Hence Strang splitting is second order in general; for commuting matrices it is exact.
For the spatial discretization, use , and the interior vector , with . The central finite differences give
Here lists lower diagonal, main diagonal and upper diagonal, in that order. Thus and . Discrete summation by parts gives
The matrix exponential is consequently a contraction in the Euclidean norm, while is an orthogonal matrix for real . Therefore
Repeated split steps are contractive in the mesh-weighted norm , uniformly in the spatial mesh and without a Courant–Friedrichs–Lewy condition. The split semidiscretization is unconditionally stable. No commutativity or shared eigenvectors are needed for this Strang splitting contraction for symmetric diffusion and skew advection. Its time-order proof is for fixed spatial matrices; as , commutators can grow, so this stability result alone is not a uniform-in-mesh second-order error estimate.
The bounded classical solution is the heat-kernel convolution
The two-dimensional heat kernel has integral one. Boundedness of permits differentiation under the integral for , proving and . Its approximate identity property gives , locally uniformly since is continuous. This bounded solution satisfies the required Gaussian-growth bound.
For heat-equation uniqueness under Gaussian growth, let be the difference of two solutions, so and on a finite time interval. Choose and a slab . The positive comparison solution
satisfies . For any , its faster spatial growth makes on a sufficiently large lateral cylinder boundary. At the initial boundary, . The heat equation maximum principle applied to proves the same inequality inside. First allow the cylinder radius to increase, then let . Repeating these slabs proves uniqueness on every finite interval with the stated uniform growth bound. No spatial integrability of is required.
At time , this is Gaussian filtering with covariance , hence per coordinate. With the angular-frequency Fourier transform convention , the Gaussian filtering Fourier multiplier is
For merely bounded , this identity is understood through tempered distributions. The multiplier leaves the zero frequency unchanged and attenuates large frequencies exponentially: it suppresses rapid noise fluctuations but blurs image edges. In cycles-per-length frequency , the multiplier is .
For the printed Perona-Malik equation, retain the supplied conductance , which includes an extra factor . In one dimension write and . Then , with
The forward-backward threshold for gradient-weighted exponential diffusion is therefore
At and the coefficient vanishes, giving degenerate diffusion. Increasing increases the forward-diffusion range. Small nonzero slopes smooth, while large slopes formally sharpen; a negative coefficient produces short-wave growth and ill-posedness, so this is a dynamics explanation, not a general existence theorem for arbitrary data. Replacing the printed conductance by would give threshold , but that is a different equation.
The four-neighbour mean expansion follows by Taylor expansion: opposing first and third derivatives cancel, so
If for every sufficiently small , division by and passage to the limit give . This is a pointwise conclusion; it does not assert harmonicity in a whole neighbourhood.
For the area median over the disk, the disk-median curvature expansion, at a point where , is
Consequently the analogous median fixed-point condition yields
This is the vanishing of the level-line curvature at : to second order the level line is straight there. It need not be a straight segment. For example has zero disk median at the origin for every radius, by odd symmetry, but its zero level line is the cubic . Vanishing curvature on an entire connected regular level arc would force that arc to be straight. The factor is for the disk's uniform area measure; a circle-boundary median has a different scale factor, while producing the same zero-curvature equation.
The leading Stokes drift comes from evaluating the oscillatory velocity at the displaced particle position. Taylor expansion gives
Here and . Inserting the initial-position displacements from the preceding solution yields
In particular the instantaneous difference is zero at , as it must be. The unaveraged constant equality in the PDF is incompatible with its initial labels. Averaging over a period removes the oscillatory term:
Equivalently, using mean parcel labels and the purely oscillatory displacements gives at this order. This recovers the intended constant result. The period-mean drift is in the wave-propagation direction and decreases as . The corresponding second-order vertical difference is for initial labels and has zero mean. The resulting horizontal displacement per cycle is ; closed first-order circles do not imply zero second-order transport.
Insert an exact smooth solution into the linear multistep method and define its unscaled local truncation error by
Its Taylor expansion has coefficients
The method has order at least exactly when , since then for every sufficiently smooth . Necessity can be checked by inserting polynomials of successive degrees. This also corresponds to the usual truncation error .
On the other hand, expansion of the characteristic polynomials of a linear multistep method gives
Thus the exponential-symbol order criterion for a multistep method is
If “order ” is meant to be the exact rather than guaranteed order, one additionally requires . The first two vanishing conditions are the usual consistency of a numerical method relations , .
To prove (a) implies (c), shrink to a contractible coordinate neighborhood. The real Poincaré lemma gives a real one-form with . Write . Because has type , and . The Dolbeault-Poincaré lemma supplies a smooth function with . Reality of gives . Thus
Taking the real function gives the local real potential for a closed (1,1)-form. Conversely, , by and anticommutation. Hence (a) and (c) are equivalent, completing all three conditions.
For the unheaded radial continuation, take the real potential as in (c). Rotation invariance makes constant on every circle of radius , so
is well defined and smooth by composition. This avoids treating a smooth function as if it had a convergent Taylor series. At nonzero , put . The identities and give
Let , which is smooth on the whole plane. Then
At the origin, rotation invariance gives the finite Taylor expansion , with . Alternatively continuity of directly gives
The metric is positive away from the origin exactly when for all finite , and it is positive at the origin exactly when this limit is positive. Smoothness at the origin is already supplied by the original smooth potential. Consequently the positivity criterion for a radial Kähler potential is
Closedness is automatic from the potential, and positivity completes the Kähler condition. No completeness of this metric is asserted. The rotation-invariant Kähler potential on the complex plane is understood as real; if a complex radial potential is initially allowed with real , its smooth radial imaginary part is harmonic and hence constant, so that constant can be removed.
Put and . For any positive integer shift , translating the interval changes its sum by at most . Averaging the shifts gives the bilinear shift averaging for a logarithmic phase identity
Since , the alternating Taylor expansion of the logarithm has remainder at most . Thus
For , we have , hence the error is at most . The exponential function on an imaginary argument changes by at most the change in that argument. Therefore
Use and . Taking absolute values proves
The boundary error comes from integer shifts, so this argument also covers intervals shorter than a shift. Here range over positive integers; no zero term is needed.
For a smooth exact solution of the advection equation, , since the transport velocity in the convention is minus one. Put , and move the scheme's right side to the left. Substitution gives the exact-solution residual
Its constant, linear and quadratic Taylor expansion terms cancel. The cubic term is
The un-substituted leading term is , so divide by to use a normalized local truncation error. For a fixed positive Courant ratio,
Thus the generic method is second order, provided stability and a compatible second-order starter are supplied.
There are two special ratios rather than an unnoticed higher generic order. At , the scheme is ; both sides lie on the same exact characteristic, and the residual vanishes identically. At the previous-level term cancels the unshifted current term for exact data, again producing zero residual on every exact characteristic solution. The first special case is stable, while the second is not stable for arbitrary two-level perturbations, as part (b) shows. Exact propagation of specially initialized data is not a substitute for stability.
A Taylor expansion of the tangential no-slip boundary condition gives . Since ,
For matrix-relative Brinkman velocity, the mean second-order tangential flow is
The mean tangential traction has no first-order geometric remainder: at the surface and , so the mean displaced-boundary and tilted-normal corrections cancel. Thus the force-free condition gives , hence . In the limit boundedness likewise excludes mean shear. The swimming speed of a Brinkman sheet is therefore
It is larger than the simple-fluid speed by for fixed waveform and frequency. The matrix offers a reaction structure for the transverse stroke and more strongly confines the induced motion; it acts as a footing against which the wave pushes. This is a prescribed-stroke comparison, not a guarantee at fixed motor power. The small-amplitude expansion is at fixed ; a large- use also needs to control variation across the displaced boundary.
Introduce a parameter to keep track of total degree. The power series for the matrix exponential gives
Set and , where the commutator is . Expanding a second matrix exponential gives
Since
the two expressions agree through total degree two. More explicitly, applying the local matrix logarithm to the first expansion gives . This proves the displayed order of the Baker--Campbell--Hausdorff formula. The Lie algebra is closed under the commutator, so its displayed exponent lies in the same Lie algebra. The expansion is a formal power series identity, or a convergent identity sufficiently near the identity matrix; this argument does not assert unrestricted global convergence.
The next two terms of the Baker--Campbell--Hausdorff formula are the two cubic commutators:
Here means total degree at least four in . If one continues by one more degree, the quartic contribution is .
For the Pauli matrices, use the Pauli matrix multiplication law
Put . The antisymmetric term disappears when contracted with , so . Consequently every even power of equals , and every odd power equals . Splitting the matrix exponential into even and odd terms of its power series yields
The Pauli matrices are Hermitian matrices, and the components of are real, so . For real , the resulting matrix satisfies
Also and , so its two eigenvalues are . The eigenvalues of are therefore , whose product is one. Thus is a unitary matrix with determinant one: it belongs to the SU(2) group.
Multiplying the two exact Pauli matrix exponentials, and using , gives
In particular, the term has a minus sign. Its quadratic Taylor expansion is
Taking , , the Pauli matrix commutator identity gives . The quadratic exponent in the Baker--Campbell--Hausdorff formula is therefore . In , only the linear part of contributes to through degree two. The anticommutator gives , reproducing the exact product's quadratic expansion.
Take the sky frame and disk frame to be right-handed orthonormal bases, with positive angular displacement measured from toward . In particular, positive is toward the observer, so material crossing the sky plane with positive is at the ascending node. Write , , , and . The disk frame's first unit vector lies along its ascending node, and its second has positive component. The orbital-frame rotation from inclination and node therefore gives
Each column is a disk-frame unit vector in sky coordinates, so and the inverse is . At the disk's ascending node, the component of its tangential velocity is positive, confirming the sign of the tilt.
Let define a provisional planet frame whose first axis is the planet's sky-plane ascending node. Its normal is . Expressing that normal in the disk orthonormal basis, with , gives
The last component is the dot product of the two orbital normals, hence the cosine of the mutual inclination. The mutual ascending node points along : motion there has positive disk-normal component. Set
Then , and the quadrant-correct longitude of ascending node is . Thus
The tangent alone cannot fix the quadrant, and is undefined for exactly coincident orbital planes.
For the two rotation routes, define as the oriented angle, within the planet's orbital plane, from its sky-plane ascending node to its disk-plane ascending node. If are the first two columns of , take . Both routes describe the same planet orthonormal basis:
The left route goes through the disk frame; the right goes through the sky-node planet frame. Comparing their third columns gives the two boxed relations, while comparison of first columns fixes the extra in-plane angle.
Figure 1.
Sky-node directions and the mutual ascending node of the disk and planet
. Details.
Put and . A second-order Taylor expansion gives , and therefore the mutual inclination of nearly edge-on orbits satisfies
All expansion angles are in radians. For plotting in degrees this is . The given planet has exact and . The exact minimum occurs at , with . At and , the second-order values are and .
Figure 2.
Mutual inclination versus the planet's observed inclination
. Details.
For the disk evolution, neglect disk self-gravity, collisions that align the planes, and back-reaction on the planet. In the initial disk plane, use the complex inclination for a ring and for the planet. Linear Laplace-Lagrange secular theory has forced inclination and solution for initially flat rings. For an inner circular perturber, the Laplace coefficient formula is , with . Its quadrupole approximation uses , yielding
In the plot referenced to the initial disk, every ring runs clockwise on the same circle centered at , starting at the origin. Inner rings advance more quickly. If the axes are instead referenced to the planet's plane, the relative tilt is : these circles are centered at the origin, and the mutual inclination is constant. Both conventions describe the same nodal precession; they should not be mixed.
Figure 3.
Differential nodal precession in initial-disk and planet-plane inclination coordinates
. Details.
At an intermediate epoch, rings with have tilted substantially while outer rings with remain near the original disk plane. This radial variation is a planet-induced debris-disk warp. The characteristic affected radius grows like . Conservative differential nodal precession preserves each ring's tilt relative to the planet, so it does not by itself align every orbit; an unresolved inner region can acquire a mean plane near the planetary plane through phase mixing. The secular interpretation is also described in Wyatt's planetary dynamics lectures.
Consider an initial value problem on , with a Lipschitz continuous vector field in the solution variable and enough smoothness for the stated error expansions. Convergence of a numerical method means
with consistent starting values. An order of a numerical method quantifies this approximation: with sufficiently accurate starting data and the required stability, the global error is . Stability of a numerical method controls the amplification and accumulation of perturbations; it is the link between a small local defect and small global error.
For a one-step formula , define the unscaled local truncation error
The method has local order if uniformly along sufficiently smooth solutions. If the defect is divided by , its order is instead ; the convention must be specified. Assume also the perturbation estimate
The global error then satisfies
Iterating, or applying the discrete Gronwall inequality, gives
There are steps on a fixed interval, so stable propagation turns local defects into accumulated error. Starting error is needed to retain order . This explains why matching an exact Taylor expansion is insufficient unless errors are controlled during repeated steps.
For a fixed-coefficient linear multistep method, write
The consistency of a numerical method conditions are and . The higher order conditions for a linear multistep method are
with right side zero for ; exact order means first failure at . They come from inserting the exact solution and comparing its Taylor expansion.
Errors at follow the homogeneous recurrence determined by . Zero-stability is equivalent to the root condition for a multistep method: all roots of a polynomial have modulus at most one, and every unit-modulus root is simple. Roots outside the disk give exponential growth in the number of steps; repeated unit roots give polynomial growth in that number. Repeated interior roots are harmless because their polynomial factors are dominated by decay. Under the usual Lipschitz continuity and initialization assumptions, the Dahlquist equivalence theorem gives
For a zero-stable order- linear multistep method, local defects and starting errors of the stated orders yield global error by a recurrence bound and the discrete Gronwall inequality. Every required starting value matters.
A concrete failure of “consistency implies convergence” is
Here and , so and : the method is consistent, of order one. But its root violates zero-stability. For with exact solution zero and starting values , , the computed solution is . These starting errors vanish, yet at the error diverges. Local accuracy cannot compensate for an unstable recurrence.
A different meaning of stability concerns a fixed step on decaying equations. The Dahlquist test equation introduces . A one-step method gives and is absolutely stable when . For a linear multistep method, the corresponding amplification polynomial of a multistep method is , and every root must satisfy the bounded root condition, not just the root approximating . Strict asymptotic decay requires the roots to have modulus less than one for . This distinction matters at reducible methods with an undamped parasitic mode, as in question 1(c).
The Forward Euler method has order one and , so its linear stability domain is . For , with , it requires . It converges as , yet an excessively large step can produce growing oscillations on an exactly decaying problem. The Backward Euler method has the same order, but makes it A-stable and L-stable. For a stiff differential equation, fast decay can impose a severe explicit time-step restriction even when accuracy of the slow dynamics would permit a much larger step.
The trapezoidal rule has order two and is A-stable, but is not L-stable, since its stability function tends to along the negative real axis. The Second Dahlquist barrier limits an irreducible A-stable linear multistep method to order at most two. This does not limit implicit Runge-Kutta methods: question 4's Lobatto IIIA method is fourth-order and A-stable. Conversely, question 1's fourth-order member is convergent but not A-stable. These examples show that order of a numerical method, zero-stability and A-stability answer different questions.
For nonlinear dissipative problems, B-stability controls distances between numerical solutions; algebraic stability of a Runge-Kutta method is a sufficient coefficient criterion. Question 4 shows that A-stability alone does not imply that coefficient criterion. Variable time steps require additional analysis of step ratios and error propagation, and stiff problems may require uniform-in-stiffness error estimates beyond the fixed-problem convergence result. The useful chain is local accuracy plus the appropriate perturbation bound, giving global accuracy; absolute and nonlinear stability then determine which practical time steps preserve the intended dynamics.
Use the Cartesian streamfunction convention , . In the creeping-flow regime implicit in the question's biharmonic equation hint, the Stokes equations are , . Taking their curl eliminates pressure and gives
The fluid occupies the region above the actual sheet; the perturbation calculation expands its boundary about . In the swimming frame the material velocity is . The vertical kinematic condition and the supplied Navier slip boundary condition therefore give, at ,
At infinity, and , with bounded velocity and no imposed shear; all fields are periodic in with period . The sign is important: a sheet translating at sees the remote fluid translating at .
Set , , , , and . The two dimensionless parameters are the small-slope approximation parameter and dimensionless slip length . With , the dimensionless biharmonic stream function for planar Stokes flow satisfies
Expand and . At first order,
The decaying first harmonic of the biharmonic equation has the form . The vertical condition fixes and excludes a cosine component. The horizontal condition gives
Thus and for every . The spatially averaged first-order streamfunction is affine in ; its Navier slip boundary condition forces . Therefore
This first-order slip independence of a transverse sheet is independent of slip length. Its surface tangential velocity and surface shear are both zero: and . This explains why the first-order streamfunction agrees with the no-slip boundary condition.
To find the slip-enhanced swimming speed of a transverse sheet, expand only the Navier slip boundary condition through second order. Put . Taylor expansion at the displaced boundary yields
Direct differentiation gives
Hence
Average over . The zero Fourier series mode of a biharmonic streamfunction is a cubic polynomial in ; bounded velocity at infinity removes the quadratic and cubic terms. Thus its velocity is the constant , and its averaged shear is zero. The mean boundary velocity determines Taylor-sheet swimming speed principle then gives
The even remainder follows because changing the sign of the amplitude is equivalent to a half-period phase shift. In dimensional form,
For the Navier-slip Taylor swimming sheet, the ratio of speed to the no-slip value is whenever : slip increases the swimming speed. The expansion is for fixed as ; it is not a uniform prediction of arbitrarily large speed if the slip length is allowed to diverge with the inverse amplitude.
The arclength element is . For uniformly small slopes, the Taylor expansion gives
Thus to quadratic order in the slopes the excess length is . This is the small-slope approximation used in the subsequent elastic energy.