Wave Turbulence on the Surface of a Fluid in a High-Gravity Environment

A. Cazaubiel¹, S. Mawet², A. Darras^{2, 3}, G. Grosjean², J. J. W. A. van Loon^{4, 5}, S. Dorbolo², and E. Falcon¹

¹Université de Paris, Univ Paris Diderot, MSC, UMR 7057 CNRS, F-75 013 Paris, France
²GRASP, Département de Physique B5a, Université de Liège, FNRS - B-4000 Liège, Belgium
³Experimental Physics, Saarland University, D-66123 Saarbrücken, Germany
⁴Gravity Simulation Laboratory, ESTEC, ESA, Noordwijk, The Netherlands

⁵ACTA, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Reference: Physical Review Letters 123, 244501 (2019)

URL: https://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.244501
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.123.244501

We report on the observation of gravity-capillary wave turbulence on the surface of a fluid in a high-gravity environment. By using a large-diameter centrifuge, the effective gravity acceleration is tuned up to 20 times the Earth gravity. The transition frequency between the gravity and capillary regimes is thus increased up to one decade as predicted theoretically. A frequency power-law wave spectrum is observed in each regime and is found to be independent of the gravity level and of the wave steepness. While the timescale separation required by weak turbulence is well verified experimentally regardless of the gravity level, the nonlinear and dissipation timescales are found to be independent of the scale, as a result of the finite size effects of the system (large-scale container modes) that are not taken currently into account theoretically.

PDF file and Supplemental Material

Press items:

Probing Wave Turbulence at High Gravity Physics - Synopsis, December 10, 2019, by Erika K. Carlson (Article in PDF)

"High-gravity water waves", ESA - In the Spotlight and ESA Technology Image of the Week, January 15, 2020

"Testing Waves in High Gravity", FYFD (FY Fluid Dynamics), January 09, 2020 by Nicole Sharp

"Wave turbulence at high gravity", MSC Laboratory Web Site, December 18, 2019 (in french)

Ceci n’est pas qu’une tempête dans un verre d’eau »FNRS.news Magazine, n°119, juin 2020, p. 60 (Article in PDF or whole magazine)

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