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Center for Nonlinear Studies |
For most of their propagation, tsunamis are linear dispersive waves whose speed is limited by the depth of the ocean and which can be regarded as a diffraction-decorated caustic in spacetime. For constant depth, uniform asymptotics gives a very accurate compact description of the tsunami profile generated by an arbitrary initial disturbance. Variations in depth can focus tsunamis onto cusped caustics, and this ‘singularity on a singularity’ constitutes an unusual diffraction problem, whose solution indicates that focusing can amplify the tsunami energy by an order of magnitude.
Host: Razvan Teodorescu, T-4/CNLS