The asymptotics of blow-up in inviscid Boussinesq flow and related systems

We consider the approach to blow-up in two-dimensional inviscidflows with stagnation-point similitude, in particular a buoyancy-drivenflow resulting from a horizontally quadratic density variationin a horizontally unbounded slab. The blow-up, which is onlypossible because the flow has infinite energy, proceeds by intensificationof the vorticity and density gradient in a layer adjacent tothe upper boundary, while the remainder of the flow tends towardsirrotationality. The governing Boussinesq flow equations arefirst solved numerically, and the results suggest scalings whichare then used in an asymptotic analysis as 0, where is thetime remaining until blow-up. The structure of the asymptoticsolution, involving exponential orders as well as powers andlogarithms of the small parameter, is suggested by the analysisof a simpler related problem for which an exact solution isavailable. The expansion is uniformly valid across the upperboundary layer and the outer region, but there is a layer adjacentto the lower boundary where the flow remains dependent on theinitial conditions and is undetermined by the asymptotics.