Trapped modes around freely floating bodies in a two-layer fluid channel

Abstract

Unlike the trapping of time-harmonic water waves by fixed obstacles, the oscillation of freely floating structures gives rise to a complex nonlinear spectral problem. Still, through a convenient elimination scheme the system simplifies to a linear spectral problem for a self-adjoint operator in a Hilbert space. Under symmetry assumptions on the geometry of the fluid domain, we present conditions guaranteeing the existence of trapped modes in a two-layer fluid channel. Numerous examples of floating bodies supporting trapped modes are given.