Shock Modon: A New Type of Coherent Structure in Rotating Shallow Water

Noé Lahaye (1) , Vladimir Zeitlin (2, 1)

1 LMD - Laboratoire de Météorologie Dynamique (UMR 8539)
2 IUF - Institut universitaire de France

We show that a new type of coherent structure, a shock modon, exists in a rotating shallow water model at large Rossby numbers. It is a combination of an asymmetric vortex dipole with a stationary hydraulic jump. The structure is long living, despite the energy dissipation by the hydraulic jump, and moving along a circular path. Collisions of shock modons can be elastic, or lead to formation of shock tripoles.

Domaines: Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Planète et Univers [physics]

Noé Lahaye, Vladimir Zeitlin. Shock Modon: A New Type of Coherent Structure in Rotating Shallow Water. Physical Review Letters, 2012, 108 (4), pp.044502. ⟨10.1103/physrevlett.108.044502⟩. ⟨hal-01115483⟩