Instability of unidirectional flows for the 2D $α$-Euler equations

We study stability of unidirectional flows for the linearized 2D $α$-Euler equations on the torus. The unidirectional flows are steady states whose vorticity is given by Fourier modes corresponding to a vector $\mathbf p \in \mathbb Z^{2}$. We linearize the $α$-Euler equation and write the linearized operator $L_{B}$ in $\ell^{2}(\mathbb Z^{2})$ as a direct sum of one-dimensional difference operators $L_{B,\mathbf q}$ in $\ell^{2}(\mathbb Z)$ parametrized by some vectors $\mathbf q\in\mathbb Z^2$ such that the set $\{\mathbf q +n \mathbf p:n \in \mathbb Z\}$ covers the entire grid $\mathbb Z^{2}$. The set $\{\mathbf q +n \mathbf p:n \in \mathbb Z\}$ can have zero, one, or two points inside the disk of radius $\|\mathbf p\|$. We consider the case where the set $\{\mathbf q +n \mathbf p:n \in \mathbb Z\}$ has exactly one point in the open disc of radius $\mathbf p$. We show that unidirectional flows that satisfy this condition are linearly unstable. Our main result is an instability theorem that provides a necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of a positive eigenvalue to the operator $L_{B,\mathbf q}$ in terms of equations involving certain continued fractions. Moreover, we are also able to provide a complete characterization of the corresponding eigenvector. The proof is based on the use of continued fractions techniques expanding upon the ideas of Friedlander and Howard.

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