Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 June 2008
The fluid velocity far from a translating body in two-dimensional irrotational flow is generally dipolar. This is a classical result. Here we ask when the dipolar component vanishes. Lamb (1945, § 126) provides symmetry conditions on the virtual mass tensor for this to be the case. We show that these conditions are not necessary and obtain the sufficient and necessary condition in terms of the shape of the body using conformal maps. Some explicit examples are constructed based on this condition.