Laboratory experiments on wave turbulence

Pages: 819 - 840, Volume 13, Issue 4, June 2010

doi:10.3934/dcdsb.2010.13.819       Abstract        Full Text (4033.2K)       Related Articles

Eric Falcon - Laboratoire Matière et Systèmes Complexes (MSC), Université Paris Diderot, CNRS (UMR 7057), 10 rue A. Domon & L. Duquet, 75 013 Paris, France (email)

Abstract: This review paper is devoted to a presentation of recent progress in wave turbulence. I first present the context and state of the art of this field of research both experimentally and theoretically. I then focus on the case of wave turbulence on the surface of a fluid, and I discuss the main results obtained by our group: caracterization of the gravity and capillary wave turbulence regimes, the first observation of intermittency in wave turbulence, the occurrence of strong fluctuations of injected power in the fluid, the observation of a pure capillary wave turbulence in low gravity environment and the observation of magnetic wave turbulence on the surface of a ferrofluid. Finally, open questions in wave turbulence are discussed.

Keywords:  Wave turbulence, N-wave interaction process, weak turbulence, surface waves, experiments, intermittency, power spectrum, energy flux, gravity waves, capillary waves.
Mathematics Subject Classification:  Primary: 7605, 76B15; Secondary: 76F99, 76D33.

Received: March 2009;      Revised: June 2009;      Published: March 2010.