The force scale is . At the distant free surface, the Stokeslet's pressure and viscous normal-stress scales are . Gravity restores a displaced surface by a pressure change , so
Thus , consistent with treating the boundary as approximately flat and impermeable at leading order. This uses the stipulated gravity-dominated restoring balance.
The liquid-air interface has negligible tangential traction. The stress-free image of a normal Stokeslet places an opposite point force at the reflection point, a distance above the bubble centre. Across the flat surface the combined normal velocity is odd and the tangential velocity is even, so the normal velocity and tangential stress vanish there. A same-radius inviscid drop of density has downward excess weight , exactly opposite the bubble's upward buoyancy. Its exterior Stokeslet therefore supplies this image, giving the asserted full-space comparison to leading order in .
The image's incident axial velocity at the bubble is
To first reflection, the bubble translates with this locally uniform incident velocity plus its isolated rise speed . Hence the bubble rise near a distant stress-free free surface is
Only the first relative correction is retained; the image's spatial variation and additional reflections affect higher terms.
The customary capillary-controlled small-deformation condition is a small capillary number,
equivalently a small Bond number . This is a sufficient condition, not a necessary condition for the special isolated spherical solution in part (b). More precisely, the image's strain is , so its deformation-producing normal stress compared with is . When exploiting the exact isolated solution, that smaller combination controls the leading boundary-induced distortion. If capillarity at the distant free surface is also retained, the gravity-dominated deflection scaling requires ; allows both the usual spherical-bubble criterion and gravity-dominated surface restoration.
Let the undisturbed water surface be , the oil's upper surface and its lower surface , so . Leading hydrostatic pressure in the nearly inviscid water is relative to atmospheric pressure; in the oil it is . Equality at the interface gives , hence
Thus the horizontal hydrostatic driving gradient is
This reduced gravity accounts for most of the oil thickness being below the undisturbed water level.
Because the oil is much more viscous than the water and air, tangential tractions on both faces are negligible. In a thin layer, the leading horizontal velocity is consequently independent of depth: the floating extensional viscous gravity current is a plug, rather than the parabolic profile of a no-slip gravity current. Integrating incompressibility between the moving material boundaries, and using their kinematic boundary condition, gives conservation of oil volume,
To derive the factor in the extensional balance, incompressibility gives . The Newtonian fluid stress tensor has . Normal-stress balance relative to the hydrostatic part therefore requires . The horizontal stress then satisfies
Thus the longitudinal tensile force in an oil slice, relative to its hydrostatic pressure, is per unit width. Balancing its difference across the slice with the horizontal driving force yields
The coefficient is the planar extensional Trouton ratio, arising from both the direct horizontal strain and the pressure correction required by the transverse normal-stress condition.
Using the pressure gradient above, integration in gives
The stated nose stress condition sets , not an arbitrary imposed inlet tension. Consequently
For a material slice injected at time , let be its age. The thickness equation along its Lagrangian trajectory is , with at injection. Define
Then . The slice injected during has volume per unit width, so at fixed observation time ,
Since a newly injected slice has , integration and subsequent differentiation along a material slice give the constant-flux floating extensional gravity current:
The oldest slice forms the nose. Measuring time from the start of injection, there, so
Its speed is exactly the material velocity at the nose, as required.
For a fixed position behind the nose, the age needed to reach it is determined by , independently of the observation time. Hence both thickness and velocity become stationary there once the nose has passed. Eliminating gives
Their product is , so the steady profile carries precisely the inlet volume flux; integrating it to gives the total injected volume .
The length
is the horizontal distance over which reduced-gravity driving causes an order-one change in inlet speed and thickness by viscous extension. The associated age is ; the exact profile contains . It is an extensional adjustment length, not a shear-diffusion scale. The result applies while the stated thin-layer and negligible-inertia approximations remain valid.
Take positive in the snail's direction of travel, and let measure height above the rigid plane. The wave moves at laboratory velocity . In the wave frame the plane's horizontal velocity is and the foot's is . The foot is stationary as a shape, so its material velocity is tangent to : to leading lubrication theory order its components are . Apply the no-slip boundary condition to both surfaces.
The leading Stokes flow equations are and . Their solution is the local Couette-Poiseuille flow
The normal-velocity condition on each steady surface and incompressibility make the wave-frame flux independent of . Integrating the velocity gives
Put . Periodicity of pressure gives , and hence
The shear traction exerted by the fluid on the plane, positive in the direction, is
The snail is force-free horizontally: its gait consists of internal motion and it has no externally applied horizontal drive. Uniform locomotion therefore requires zero net horizontal fluid force on the foot per wavelength. The stresses on opposite periodic fluid faces cancel, so horizontal momentum balance also makes the net force on the plane zero. Thus
Substitution of proves the lubrication model of a crawling snail:
The Cauchy-Schwarz inequality applied to and gives , with equality exactly for a uniform gap. Thus the denominator is positive, and a nonuniform waveform gives forward motion; the flat gap gives .
For the sinusoidal shape, the given integrals yield
Therefore and
For small amplitude, : the leading locomotion is quadratic, and there is no propulsion from a flat foot. As , , so the wave becomes nearly stationary in the laboratory frame while the snail advances relative to it. However, the minimum gap tends to zero; finite speed in this limit does not imply finite dissipation, and itself is excluded by the noncontact model.
For the general waveform, use the mechanical work identity for viscous dissipation. Pressure does no boundary work because the boundary motion is tangential in the wave frame. The plane's velocity is constant, and its total force is zero, so it contributes zero net work. The upper boundary supplies, at leading lubrication order,
The zero plane-force relation is . Consequently
As a direct check, integrating the squared shear rate gives , which reduces to the same result using the force-free speed relation. Zero horizontal force on the foot does not mean zero gait work: the tangential material velocity along its sloping surface includes vertical motion.
For prescribed speed and sinusoidal shape, eliminate to obtain
Writing , the logarithmic derivative of the amplitude-dependent factor is
The only root in is . The dissipation diverges at both endpoints, so this is the global minimum and gives the optimal sinusoidal waveform for viscous snail locomotion:
The magically driven flat glider has simple Couette flow in the laboratory frame, and dissipation per wavelength. Hence
The comparison is at the same , mean thickness and wavelength ; the flat glider is externally propelled, whereas the snail must power its internal waveform.
With the streamfunction convention , disturbance vorticity is . The basic Couette flow has constant vorticity . Linearizing the two-dimensional Euler equations for an inviscid fluid in vorticity form gives
The second term vanishes, so
This derivation uses incompressibility and an inviscid homogeneous fluid, without introducing a viscous decay term.
For the initial streamwise Fourier mode, write . Its transported Laplacian has amplitude
The decaying Green function on the line is
This is the negative of the one-dimensional modified Helmholtz Green function for : it is continuous and its first derivative with respect to has jump one at . Consequently , and inversion yields
Under the usual decay of the initial profile and its derivatives, the initial integral returns . There is no nonzero homogeneous solution of decaying at both infinities.
For the large-time calculation, put and , keeping the observation point fixed. Assume sufficient localization to justify the following integrations by parts; for example, may be a Schwartz function. The function is continuous, but its derivative in has jump
since . The Fourier decay from a Green-function derivative jump gives
Here the regular second derivative is computed separately on either side of . If it is integrable, its Fourier transform tends to zero by the Riemann-Lebesgue lemma. Hence
The cusp in the Green function, rather than a stationary point of the linear phase, supplies this leading contribution.
To obtain the streamwise velocity, differentiate the integral itself. This avoids an unjustified differentiation of a pointwise remainder. The kernel has a jump of as a function of at , so one integration by parts gives
The transverse velocity follows exactly from , while the Laplacian equation gives vorticity without an asymptotic approximation:
Thus the generic orders are , , and , at each fixed . If , the leading coefficients vanish and faster decay can occur. For real physical disturbances, take the real part of these complex Fourier modes. The vorticity generally keeps oscillating rather than approaching a pointwise limit, even while the velocity decays. This is linear inviscid damping in unbounded Couette flow caused by phase mixing.
For arbitrary initial vorticity, the characteristics satisfy , , and . Therefore the exact solution is
Putting recovers the preceding nondecaying mode. In general the shear is area preserving, so its transport preserves every finite Lp norm of vorticity. Local pointwise behavior for arbitrary depends on its spatial profile: an initially localized profile can move away from a fixed point. There is no universal pointwise nonzero limit or decay of vorticity for arbitrary initial data.
The stated smoothness and decay of alone do not guarantee the claimed algebraic rates. The intended integration by parts calculation requires control of derivatives and tails; convergence of the displayed integral alone is insufficient. Here is a counterexample to the literal unrestricted rate, with . Choose a nonnegative smooth function supported in with , and a sufficiently rapidly increasing sequence . Set
Choose . Then is smooth and integrable, is smooth and tends to zero at both infinities, and every evolution integral converges absolutely. At the observation point , all supports have , so
At , the th summand is . The Fourier transform of decays faster than any inverse power. Inductively choose so large that all earlier summands at together have modulus less than , and choose subsequent times so that . The later summands then also have modulus less than . Thus , contradicting . This construction meets the printed assumptions; what it lacks is uniform derivative localization. The preceding boxed decay formulas are the correct intended result under the explicitly stated sufficient localization hypothesis.
Let use the Heaviside step function, and , so that points from the body into the fluid. The kinematic boundary condition gives on the surface. In the exterior, mass conservation and the Euler equations for an inviscid fluid are
Products with are understood distributionally, using and . With , the extended continuity equation is
The corresponding extended momentum equation is
because its advective surface term is . Differentiate continuity in time and substitute the divergence of momentum. Subtracting gives the Ffowcs Williams-Hawkings equation
where the inviscid Lighthill stress tensor is
If denotes total pressure, this tensor includes the constant ambient pressure . Its contribution cancels the corresponding surface term exactly. For radiation integrals it is convenient to subtract from both terms, making with . The displayed source identity is unchanged by this consistent pressure-gauge subtraction.
Assume no incoming sound and no free initial acoustic field. Put , , , and . Convolution with the retarded acoustic Green function gives the three source integrals, for an observer outside the body:
These are the surface thickness, surface loading and volume quadrupole contributions. The retarded surface Dirac delta distributions must remain inside the integrals: integrating them over a moving retarded surface produces the moving-surface retarded Jacobian, and is not generally the same as simply substituting one retarded time into an instantaneous surface integral.
For an acoustic compact-source approximation, suppose the dominant sources have size , source frequency scale , and . Also require and the acoustic far field . Then , , and the leading source integrals use the common time . Slow source motion relative to is implicit in this leading retardation approximation. Define
Thus is net displaced mass per unit time, is the fluid pressure force on the body, and is the integrated excess Lighthill stress tensor. The minus sign in fixes the requested loading convention; the force on the fluid is opposite. On the radiating terms, , giving
Spatial derivatives of produce near-field terms of orders and , omitted here. Neglecting source delays is a separate approximation from discarding those observer near-field terms. If a leading integrated source vanishes by symmetry, its first nonzero delay correction can be as important as another retained multipole.
For the translating sphere, write its center as , with a unit vector, and its velocity as . Let , and . Impermeability gives . Since its volume is constant,
in the leading compact formula. The individual local thickness sources have scale , but their net monopole cancels.
At first order in amplitude and leading order in , the exterior incompressible velocity potential is , where is measured from the mean center. It has at . Linear Bernoulli equation gives there. Since ,
This is the added mass of a sphere. The explicit leading loading contribution is
It scales as . In homentropic small-amplitude flow the volume stress is quadratic to leading order, over volume , so the volume acoustic quadrupole has scale
It is smaller than the linear dipole by and can contain a second harmonic.
For completeness, the exact thickness-source integral has a nonzero first delay correction even though . Its first spatial moment is
Expand its integrand at . The leading nonzero translating-sphere acoustic thickness dipole is therefore
It too scales as . Thus zero net-volume monopole does not mean zero thickness radiation. The full leading linear sound, summing thickness and loading, is
The leading compact equation gives the requested zero and added-mass terms; this extra delay calculation is necessary to obtain the complete linear field when its nominal monopole has cancelled.
Suppress the common time factor and invert the stated Fourier transform with . Use limiting absorption principle , and choose with positive real part for the evanescent spectrum. For its outgoing continuation is . The pole lies above the inversion contour and below it. These prescriptions fix both radiation and pole signs.
The even interior scattered transform solves , so it is . The exterior transform is . Let be the transform of their common upward normal derivative on . On the rigid plates set both derivatives to zero; on continuity requires them to agree. Hence this derivative is supported on the negative half-line and is analytic below the transform contour. It follows that
The difference between exterior and interior scattered traces on is , where . At the open negative half-line the total traces must match, so this difference equals the incident wave . Its negative-half transform is . The positive-half trace difference has an unknown upper-half-plane transform , giving the Wiener-Hopf equation
Factor , divide by , and subtract the forcing pole using :
The left side is analytic below and the right side above; the pole in the last quotient is removable. Analytic continuation makes their common value entire. The finite-energy edge condition and algebraic factor growth make this entire remainder vanish: the allowed normal-velocity edge singularity is at most inverse-square-root, so its half-line transform is , while . The same edge condition excludes a growing polynomial remainder. This pole subtraction in a Wiener-Hopf equation yields
The corresponding exterior result for the Wiener-Hopf solution for an open parallel-plate waveguide is
Both forms are useful: the first makes the common normal derivative transparent, and the second removes the apparent factor singularity at a grazing saddle.
The final unheaded request has a sign error in its printed exponent. To see this from the derived solution rather than an outgoing-decay assertion alone, simplify the interior transform to
Near , and for fixed . Thus
For , inversion of the first term gives , cancelling the continued incident potential. The remaining branch-point term uses on the specified contour, so it is . Its inverse transform at is proportional to . Therefore the upstream decay of an open parallel-plate waveguide is
The amplitude decays as , not . The positive exponent is present in the original PDF, so it cannot be proved under the stated outgoing problem. The incident pole cancellation and the explicit branch expansion give the corrected conclusion.
Fix time dependence and use pressure amplitude for . Write the incident acoustic plane wave as , where , . “Perfectly reflecting” specifies zero absorbed energy but does not uniquely select a boundary condition: a rigid wall has a Neumann boundary condition, whereas a pressure-release surface has a Dirichlet boundary condition. We first give the rigid-wall result, and then the alternative pressure-release result.
For the rigid surface the normal-velocity condition, without an immaterial normalizing factor, is
Expand in the height amplitude, scaling a fixed differentiable profile. The flat total field is . Taylor expansion gives
Let and on the outgoing sheet: it is positive real for propagating modes and positive imaginary for evanescent modes. Fourier transforming this boundary derivative gives . The outgoing angular spectrum therefore yields the small-height Neumann scattering field
For an infinite stationary surface the Fourier quantities may be interpreted as random distributions or through a finite illumination window and its limiting mean. The correction is linear in and , so zero mean height and stationarity give
Only the rough correction has zero mean at first order; the flat reflected wave remains.
The first nontrivial coherent correction depends on correlation, not just the r.m.s. height. Define , its power spectrum of surface height , and . At second order the flat-field third normal derivative and mixed derivative vanish at zero, leaving
For each first-order outgoing Fourier component, its derivative data are , its second normal derivative is , and its tangential derivative is . Averaging their products with gives the mean derivative
Dividing by the specular outgoing derivative therefore gives oblique coherent reflection from a stationary rigid rough surface:
This second-order expression requires the relevant spectral moments to exist and the boundary expansion to remain controlled. Small alone does not control arbitrarily large slopes or high-frequency roughness. The given stationarity and determine the first-order mean above, but do not determine this spectrum-weighted correction numerically.
For a pressure-release surface, instead impose . The flat reflected coefficient is , and Taylor expansion gives . Thus small-height Dirichlet scattering gives
The zero-mean first correction again vanishes on averaging. At second order , giving
If the roughness spectrum is concentrated near after the incident tangential shift, the additional long-correlation approximation yields and . A local Gaussian random-height phase model would then give and , but Gaussian statistics and that local approximation were not supplied. They must not be inferred from stationarity and r.m.s. height alone.
Translation invariance of the stationary surface statistics implies that a single incident tangential wavenumber retains that wavenumber in its coherent mean. Hence, away from the surface, write
The unknown effective reflection coefficient is referenced to the mean plane . It may be the rigid or pressure-release coefficient just derived, or a more general rough-boundary response. Lossless microscopic reflection does not require : diffuse scattering removes power from the coherent specular field.
For the added planar upper interface, keep the same tangential wavenumber . Let on its outgoing sheet. The normal acoustic impedances in the layer and upper medium are
Continuity of pressure and normal velocity gives the reflection coefficient for upward incidence from the layer and transmission coefficient for downward incidence from above:
If a separate impedance sheet rather than an ordinary fluid interface is intended, its specified effective impedance replaces the upper termination; a sheet impedance has not otherwise been given. These formulas correspond to the stated two-fluid interface.
Let the upper incident pressure amplitude at be . If and denote downward and upward layer amplitudes at that plane, their interface and lower-reflection relations are
Solving, or summing the geometric series of repeated round trips, gives the coherent acoustic layer above a rough reflector:
The expression describes the field at heights where the common homogeneous layer exists; perturbative mean fields near the moving rough boundary need their physical trace evaluated separately. For an upper incident wave normalized as , set . With a matched upper medium, and , the formula reduces to the single lower-reflection field. Zeros of the denominator give ideal layer resonances, interpreted with outgoing continuation or small loss.
This is a coherent specular description: a single effective closes the downward/upward mean amplitudes. Diffuse paths reflected back from the upper interface can modify the mean response; they must either be neglected in this approximation or included in the effective lower reflection coefficient for the actual layered environment. Without a full roughness spectrum and boundary type, a unique numerical mean field cannot be specified beyond this general coefficient form.
Use the flat-surface Boussinesq approximation, with small thermal expansion, constant properties, negligible surface deformation, and constant surface tension. The top is impermeable and shear-free, while the solid walls are no-slip. Temperature-dependent surface tension would introduce a separate Marangoni stress, which is not included in this buoyancy-driven model. The stated time scale requires to mean thermal diffusivity; if the material property given is a dimensional thermal conductivity , use .
Take positive downwards and define the nondimensional streamfunction by , . Velocity is scaled by , streamfunction by , and temperature is measured from the cold-end surface value. Define the Prandtl number and horizontal-length Rayleigh number by
where is the thermal expansion coefficient. Put , and let . Taking the curl of the Boussinesq equations eliminates pressure and gives the full nonlinear vorticity-temperature system
The buoyancy sign follows from the downward coordinate: warmer fluid has body acceleration .
Choose the same streamfunction constant, zero, on the connected boundary. The mechanical and thermal boundary conditions are
The upper stress-free boundary condition reduces to , since there already gives . An arbitrary additive constant in changes only the reference hydrostatic pressure.
In steady infinite-Prandtl-number convection, momentum inertia disappears but thermal advection remains:
For a shallow lake, with fixed as , the leading interior temperature is . This is an outer solution: it does not satisfy the insulated sidewall derivative right at . The leading global conductive solution, which resolves those end regions, is
It is harmonic, has , and satisfies the insulated sides and bottom. Away from sidewall layers of horizontal width it reduces to with exponentially small end corrections. These layers also turn the flow and enforce the sidewall no-slip boundary condition.
In the shallow interior the dominant momentum derivatives are vertical, so . Integrating with the surface and bottom conditions gives the shallow horizontal convection with an insulated bottom solution, with :
Surface flow is toward the colder end, with a deeper return flow. The depth-integrated volume flux is zero because . The bulk expressions apply away from the turning regions, not unchanged on the vertical walls. A useful small-advection condition in the end layers is , automatic for fixed Rayleigh number in the stated thin limit.
The heat flux in these units is . For the leading bulk temperature, the horizontal transport through a vertical section per unit out-of-plane width is
Thus leading advective horizontal transport vanishes: both layers have the same temperature at a given , and their opposing volume fluxes cancel. The leading conductive transport is from the hot end toward the cold end. In dimensional form it is per unit width. Heat enters through the warmer portion of the maintained upper surface and leaves through its colder portion, with the conductive end adjustments particularly important near the two insulated sidewalls. It cannot enter through the insulated sides or bottom.
For the advection correction in shallow horizontal convection, set in the bulk. Since and , the steady heat equation gives . The conditions and imply and hence
For example the bottom bulk temperature is . The correction makes the returning deeper fluid slightly colder. Its horizontal advective heat transport is
Thus the transport including this bulk correction is , both terms directed toward the colder end.
Vertical transport must distinguish local flux from net transport. In the leading interior , whereas the temperature correction gives a local downward conductive flux . The end circulation gives an upward advective transport: with impermeable sidewalls and , integration by parts gives . It compensates that downward conduction. More generally, steady heat conservation and insulated sides give , and the insulated impermeable bottom sets the constant to zero. Therefore
There is no net vertical heat transport through the lake, despite its local recirculating heat flux and its nonzero horizontal heat transport.
Use the steady axisymmetric top-hat plume model, with plume radius , uniform mean upward speed and reduced gravity . The Boussinesq approximation uses constant reference density in inertia and retains the small density difference only in buoyancy. Assume a quiescent hydrostatic ambient, a slender fully turbulent plume, negligible molecular transport and an entrainment velocity , with constant positive entrainment coefficient . Define the ambient buoyancy frequency by ; positive is stable stratification.
The integrated volume, momentum and buoyancy balances of a Boussinesq top-hat plume in a stratified ambient are
The first follows from side entrainment, the second from the integrated buoyancy force, and the third accounts for the changing ambient density. Common factors of are cancelled. Equivalently, the requested radius, speed and reduced-gravity equations are
These equations stop describing an upward light plume once vanishes, and their light-plume interpretation requires .
For nonzero , seek plume similarity in power-law stratification in the form , and . The first balance gives . Momentum gives and . The buoyancy balance then requires , so
Choosing gives the exact power-law family, including its normalization:
These are the amplitudes and physical branches of a power-law stratified plume. No source flux was specified, so an arbitrary finite-source solution is not determined by alone; the displayed family is an exact similarity solution, rather than the general solution for arbitrary initial fluxes.
With the specific flux convention , and , their values are
The physical volume flux is , mass flux is , momentum flux is , and kinematic buoyancy flux is . Thus the “specific mass flux” is the mass flux divided by reference density, with or without the explicitly stated factor .
The parameter restrictions follow directly from positivity. Positive radius needs . Positive and real positive further require and , giving
For stable , buoyancy flux decreases with height, while volume and momentum fluxes increase. However, diverges at throughout this interval. Also the ambient density gradient and plume speed are singular there. Thus this stable similarity branch can describe a region away from a virtual source, but cannot represent a finite-buoyancy-flux point source extending all the way to . For ordinary regular stable stratifications, including positive , a finite-source rising plume instead loses buoyancy and eventually reaches neutral buoyancy and a finite rise limit; the pure-power ansatz does not supply such a solution.
For unstable and , the buoyancy flux grows with height and tends to zero at the origin. The plume draws its increasing buoyancy from an unstable ambient rather than a finite positive source buoyancy flux. Such an ambient must be maintained or treated locally, since it is itself convectively unstable. If , its density profile is singular at the source, while for its increasing density contrast eventually violates the Boussinesq approximation at sufficiently large height. These are formal local similarity solutions with corresponding physical limits. For and , the algebra also gives a real positive speed but negative : this is a heavy upward flow, not the specified light plume.
At nonzero , the values do not give finite coefficients. Respectively they would require zero entrained volume-flux growth, zero momentum-flux growth despite nonzero buoyancy, or constant buoyancy flux despite nonzero ambient stratification. They are not omitted regular endpoints.
When , the ambient is unstratified regardless of the nominal value of . The nontrivial positive-buoyancy point-source solution is the Boussinesq point-source plume:
Here is the constant specific buoyancy flux with removed. Its and vanish at the point source, while . Its near-source singularity is the usual ideal point-source limit; a finite vent replaces that limit by finite source data or a virtual origin.