Tides in rotating fluids

Abstract

The tidal disturbance forced in a differentially rotating fluid by a rigidly rotating external potential is investigated. In the study, the fluid is assumed to be inviscid, insulated, and self-gravitating, and to have laminar unperturbed and perturbed velocity fields. Under the steady torque of second-order strength exerted by the external potential, no secular changes in the angular momenta of fluid particles are observed, except possibly at corotation where the angular velocity is equal to the pattern speed of the potential. Except at corotation, all of the angular momentum is found to be transported away by internal stresses.