Decay of capillary wave turbulence

Luc Deike (1) , Michaël Berhanu (1) , Eric Falcon (1)

1 MSC - Matière et Systèmes Complexes

We report on the observation of freely decaying capillary wave turbulence on the surface of a fluid. The capillary wave turbulence spectrum decay is found to be self-similar in time with the same power law exponent than the one found in the stationary regime, in agreement with weak turbulence predictions. The amplitude of all Fourier modes are found to decrease exponentially with time at the same damping rate. The longest wavelengths involved in the system are shown to be damped by viscous surface boundary layer. These long waves play the role of an energy source during the decay that sustains nonlinear interactions to keep capillary waves in a wave turbulent state.

Domaines: Dynamique des Fluides [physics.flu-dyn]; Dynamique Chaotique [nlin.CD]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Mécanique des fluides [physics.class-ph]; Autre [cond-mat.other]

Luc Deike, Michaël Berhanu, Eric Falcon. Decay of capillary wave turbulence. Physical Review E : Statistical, Nonlinear, and Soft Matter Physics, 2012, 85, pp.066311. ⟨10.1103/PhysRevE.85.066311⟩. ⟨hal-00717642⟩