Dynamics of vortex cap solutions on the rotating unit sphere

In this work, we analytically study the existence of periodic vortex cap solutions for the homogeneous and incompressible Euler equations on the rotating unit 2-sphere, which was numerically conjectured by Dritschel-Polvani and Kim-Sakajo-Sohn. Such solutions are piecewise constant vorticity distributions, subject to the Gauss constraint and rotating uniformly around the vertical axis. The proof is based on the bifurcation from zonal solutions given by spherical caps. For the one--interface case, the bifurcation eigenvalues correspond to Burbea's frequencies obtained in the planar case but shifted by the rotation speed of the sphere. The two--interfaces case (also called band type or strip type solutions) is more delicate. Though, for any fixed large enough symmetry, and under some non-degeneracy conditions to avoid spectral collisions, we achieve the existence of at most two branches of bifurcation.