On the existence of extreme waves and the Stokes conjecture with vorticity

This is a study of singular Solutions of the problem of traveling gravity water waves on flows with vorticity. We show that, for a certain class of vorticity functions, a sequence of regular waves converges to an extreme wave with stagnation points at its crests. We also show that, for any vorticity function, the profile of an extreme wave must have either a corner of 120 degrees or a horizontal tangent at any stagnation point about Which it is supposed symmetric. Moreover, the profile necessarily has a corner of 120 degrees if the vorticity is nonnegative near the free Surface. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.