No solitary waves in 2-d gravity and capillary waves in deep water

TL;DR

This paper proves that in two-dimensional deep water, there are no solitary wave solutions for pure gravity or pure capillary waves, resolving longstanding open problems in fluid dynamics.

Contribution

It establishes the nonexistence of solitary waves in 2D deep water for pure gravity and pure capillary cases, a fundamental open question in water wave theory.

Findings

No solitary waves exist for pure gravity waves in 2D deep water.

No solitary waves exist for pure capillary waves in 2D deep water.

Results settle key open problems in the mathematical theory of water waves.

Abstract

A fundamental question in the study of water waves is the existence and stability of solitary waves. Solitary waves have been proved to exist and have been studied in many interesting situations, and often arise from the balance of different forces/factors influencing the fluid dynamics, e.g. gravity, surface tension or the fluid bottom. However, the existence of solitary waves has remained an open problem in two of the simplest cases, namely for either pure gravity waves or pure capillary waves in infinite depth. In this article we settle both of these questions in two space dimensions. Precisely, we consider incompressible, irrotational, infinite depth water wave equation, either with gravity and without surface tension, or without gravity but with surface tension. In both of these cases we prove that there are no solitary waves.