Surface and internal waves: The two-dimensional problem on forward motion of a body intersecting the interface between two fluids

Abstract

A linear two-dimensional boundary value problem, that describes steady-state surface and internal waves due to the forward motion of a body in a fluid consisting of two superposed layers with different densities, is considered. The body is fully submerged and intersects the interface between the two layers. Two well-posed formulations of the problem are proposed in which, along with the Laplace equation, boundary conditions, coupling conditions on the interface, and conditions at infinity, a pair of supplementary conditions are imposed at the points where the body contour intersects the interface. In one of the well-posed formulations (where the differences between the horizontal momentum components are given at the intersection points), the existence of the unique solution is proved for all values of the parameters except for a certain (possibly empty) nowhere dense set of values.