A unified approach towards the impossibility of finite time vanishing depth for incompressible free boundary flows

Abstract: In this paper we study the motion of an internal water wave and an internal wave in a porous medium. For these problems we establish that, if the free boundary and, in the case of the Euler equations, also the tangential velocity at the interface are sufficiently smooth, the depth cannot vanish in finite time. This results holds regardless of gravity and surface tension effects or, if applicable, the stratification in multiphase flows.