Mathematics Colloquia and Seminars

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Description

Surface waves are waves that propagate along a boundary, interface, or free surface and decay exponentially away from it. Water waves are a familiar example of surface waves. Other examples include Rayleigh waves on an elastic half-space and surface plasmons on the interface between a dielectric and a conductor. An asymptotic analysis of nonlinear surface waves typically leads to spatially nonlocal, quasilinear equations that describe the nonlinear mixing of the spectral components of the wave. We will describe a number of examples and discuss the effects of nonlinearity, including the possible formation of singularities in these surface waves.