Observation of weak turbulence spectra of capillary waves

摘要

Turbulence of capillary waves is often studied in laboratory experiments by parametrically exciting waves in vertically shaken containers (Faraday waves). Above the threshold of parametric instability the waves become nonlinear and generate multiple harmonics which form complex chaotic wave fields which re-semble turbulence. Such states are characterized by discrete frequency spectra (e.g. 11, 2]), which are often compared with the predictions from weak turbu-lence theory (WTT) of capillary waves [3, 4]. It should be noted that WTT assumes that interacting waves are weakly nonlinear and that their phases are almost random. The latter asumption has never been tested in experiments.