Physical Review Journal Club: Stability of Propagating Plane Inertial Waves in Rotating Fluids
Monday, April 20, 2026
11 a.m. ET, 4 p.m. GMT, 5 p.m. CET
Video Link
The Physical Review Journal Club is back, this time for a discussion with author Valentin Skoutnev (Columbia University), presenting the recently published Physical Review Fluids paper “Stability of Propagating Plane Inertial Waves in Rotating Fluids.”
After the presentation, the authors will answer questions from the audience in a live Q&A session, moderated by PRFluids Editorial Board member André Cavalieri (Instituto Tecnológico de Aeronáutica). Registration is free and a video recording will be provided to all registrants.
Summary:
In rotating fluids, inertial waves are a fundamental feature of the dynamics and play an important role in geophysical and astrophysical flows. Understanding when these waves remain stable and when they break down is essential for clarifying how energy is transferred across scales and how rotating turbulence develops.
Using Floquet analysis together with direct numerical simulations, the authors examine the stability and nonlinear breakdown of finite-amplitude propagating plane inertial waves. They identify the unstable perturbations as a function of wave amplitude and frequency, and show how the nonlinear development can lead either to forward energy transfer or to the emergence of long-lived geostrophic modes. The results provide new insight into the mechanisms governing instability, wave breakdown, and energy redistribution in rotating flows.
Read ahead:
Stability of Propagating Plane Inertial Waves in Rotating Fluids
Valentin Skoutnev, Aurélie Astoul, and Adrian J. Barker
Phys. Rev. Fluids 11, 024802
