Some Explicit Resonating Waves in Weakly Nonlinear Gas Dynamics

Equations governing leading order wave amplitudes of resonating almost periodic wave trains in weakly nonlinear acoustics have been obtained by Majda and Rosales [Stud. Appl. Math. 71:149–179 (1984)]. These equations consist of a pair of Burgers equations coupled through an integral term with a known kernel. Numerical experiments reported by Majda, Rosales, and Schonbek have suggested the existence of smooth solutions of this system whose components consist of traveling waves moving in opposite directions. For the simplest cosine kernel, explicit formulae are given here for such resonating wave solutions. There is a wave of maximum amplitude with a “peak.” For more general kernels, small amplitude resonating waves are constructed via bifurcation.