The singular limit of the Water-Waves equations in the rigid lid regime

Abstract: The re-scaled Water-Waves equations depend strongly on the ratio epsilon between the amplitude of the wave and the depth of the water. We investigate in this paper the convergence as epsilon goes to zero of the free surface Euler equations to the so called rigid lid model. We first prove that the only solutions of this model are zero. Due to the conservation of the Hamiltonian, the solutions of the free surface Euler equations converge weakly to zero, but not strongly in the general case, as epsilon goes to zero. We then study this default of convergence. More precisely, we show a strong convergence result of the solutions of the water waves equations in the Zakharov-Craig-Sulem formulation to the solutions of the linear water-waves equations. It is then easy to observe that these latter converge weakly to zero. The simple structure of this system also allows us to explain the mechanisms of the weak convergence to zero. Finally, we show that this convergence to the rigid lid model also holds for the solutions of the Euler equations. To this end we give a new proof of the equivalence of the free surface Euler equations and of the Zakharov-Craig-Sulem equation by building an extension of the velocity and pressure fields.