Motions of vortex patches

An evolution equation describing the motion of vortrex patches is established. The existence of steady solutions of this equation is proved. These solutions arem-fold symmetric regions of constant vorticity ω₀ and are uniformly rotating with angular velocity Ω in the range $$\tilde \Omega _{m - 1}< \tilde \Omega \leqslant \tilde \Omega _m (\tilde \Omega = \Omega /\omega _0 ,m \geqslant 2)$$ where \(\tilde \Omega _m = (m - 1)/2m\) . We call this class, ofm-fold symmetric rotating regionsD, the class of them-waves of Kelvin. Any may be regarded as a simply connected region which is a stationary configuration of the Euler equations in two dimensions. If then any magnification, rotation or reflection is also in with the same angular velocity Ω ofD. The angular velocity \(\Omega _m = \tilde \Omega _m \omega _0 \) corresponds only to the circle solution, which is a trivial member of every class ,m?2. The class corresponds to the rotating ellipses of Kirchoff. Other properties of the class are established.