paper

Statistics of surface gravity wave turbulence in the space and time domains

arXiv:0811.2579 · doi:10.1017/S0022112009991820

Abstract

We present experimental results on simultaneous space-time measurements for the gravity wave turbulence in a large laboratory flume. We compare these results with predictions of the weak turbulence theory (WTT) based on random waves, as well as with predictions based on the coherent singular wave crests. We see that both wavenumber and the frequency spectra are not universal and dependent on the wave strength, with some evidence in favor of WTT at larger wave intensities when the finite flume effects are minimal. We present further theoretical analysis of the role of the random and coherent waves in the wave probability density function (PDF) and the structure functions (SFs). Analyzing our experimental data we found that the random waves and the coherent structures/breaks coexist: the former show themselves in a quasi-gaussian PDF core and in the low-order SFs, and the latter - in the PDF tails and the high-order SF's. It appears that the x-space signal is more intermittent than the t-space signal, and the x-space SFs capture more singular coherent structures than do the t-space SFs. We outline an approach treating the interactions of these random and coherent components as a turbulence cycle characterized by the turbulence fluxes in both the wavenumber and the amplitude spaces.

29 pages, 12 figures

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