High-Frequency Instabilities of Stokes Waves

Euler's equations govern the behavior of gravity waves on the surface of an incompressible, inviscid, and irrotational fluid of arbitrary depth. We investigate the spectral stability of sufficiently small-amplitude, one-dimensional Stokes waves, i.e., periodic gravity waves of permanent form and constant velocity, in both finite and infinite depth. Using a nonlocal formulation of Euler's equations developed by Ablowitz et al. (2006), we develop a perturbation method to describe the first few high-frequency instabilities away from the origin, present in the spectrum of the linearization about the small-amplitude Stokes waves. Asymptotic and numerical computations of these instabilities are compared for the first time to excellent agreement.