Experimental study of the inverse cascade in gravity wave turbulence

L. Deike, C. Laroche & E. Falcon
 
Univ Paris Diderot, Sorbonne Cité, MSC, CNRS, UMR 7057, F-75 013 Paris, France, EU

Reference:

EPL 96, 34004 (2011)

Abstract:

We perform experiments to study the inverse cascade regime of gravity wave turbulence on the surface of a fluid. Surface waves are forced at an intermediate scale corresponding to the gravity-capillary wavelength. In response to this forcing, waves at larger scales are observed. The spectrum of their amplitudes exhibits a frequency-power law at high enough forcing. Both observations are ascribed to the upscale wave action transfers of gravity wave turbulence. The spectrum exponent is close to the value predicted by the weak turbulence theory. The spectrum amplitude is found to scale linearly with the mean injected power. We measure also the distributions of the injected power fluctuations in the presence of upscale (inverse) transfers or in the presence of a downscale (direct) cascade in gravity wave turbulence.


PACS : 47.35.-i - Hydrodynamic waves
             05.45.-a - Nonlinear dynamics and chaos
             47.27.-i - Turbulent flows

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