EAS Publications Series

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Tidal Effects in Stars, Planets and Disks
M.-J. Goupil and J.-P. Zahn (eds)
EAS Publications Series, 29 (2008) 127-147
DOI: 10.1051/eas:0829004

The dynamics of rotating fluids and binary stars

M. Rieutord

Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de l'Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, UMR 5572, CNRS et Université Paul Sabatier, 14 avenue E. Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France

Published online: 20 June 2008

Abstract
In this lecture I try to explain the basic concepts related to fluid motions when a background rotation dominates the flows. In particular, the notions of geostrophic flow, Ekman layer, Ekman circulation are explained. However, the main focus of this lecture is on the eigenmodes which occur in such a context and I emphasize here the special effects conveyed to inertial and gravito-inertial modes by the hyperbolic nature of the governing operators. A final section introduces the case of the elliptic instability which I recently suggested as one of the processes of binary synchronization.