On the stability of discrete tripole, quadrupole, Thomson’ vortex triangle and square in a two-layer/homogeneous rotating fluid

A two-layer quasigeostrophic model is considered in the f-plane approximation. The stability of a discrete axisymmetric vortex structure is analyzed for the case when the structure consists of a central vortex of arbitrary intensity Γ and two/three identical peripheral vortices. The identical vortices, each having a unit intensity, are uniformly distributed over a circle of radius R in a single layer. The central vortex lies either in the same or in another layer. The problem has three parameters (R, Γ, α), where α is the difference between layer thicknesses. A limiting case of a homogeneous fluid is also considered.