The vortex problem in a doubly periodic rectangular domain with constant background vorticity

Abstract

We formulate the N point vortex problem in a doubly-periodic rectangle with a constant background vorticity using the hydrodynamic Green’s function. We derive an explicit formula for the hydrodynamic Green’s function and the velocities of the point vortices in terms of the Schottky–Klein prime function using a conformal mapping approach. The sum of vortex strengths can be arbitrary, and when it is zero we recover previous known results including the integrability of the two and three-vortex problems. A non-zero sum of vortex strengths leads to a constant background vorticity. We derive a Hamiltonian structure for the equations and show that the two-vortex problem is integrable, and classify all possible vortex motions. In addition, for general N, we obtain several fixed lattice equilibrium configurations including single-layered and double-layered equilibria. In the latter case, we also obtain lattice configurations with defects consisting of point vortices with inhomogeneous strengths. We find equilibria arranged in doubly-periodic rectangular and parallelogram lattices consisting of N = 1, 2, 3, 4 vortices per fundamental lattice.