Non-linear fate of internal wave attractors

Abstract

We present a laboratory study on the instability of internal wave attractors in a trapezoidal fluid domain filled with uniformly stratified fluid. Energy is injected into the system via standing-wave-type motion of a vertical wall. Attractors are found to be destroyed by parametric subharmonic instability (PSI) via a triadic resonance which is shown to provide a very efficient energy pathway from long to short length scales. This study provides an explanation why attractors may be difficult or impossible to observe in natural systems subject to large amplitude forcing.

References in corpus (4)

• Experimental study of parametric subharmonic instability for internal waves
• A novel internal waves generator
• New wave generation
• Resonant Triad Instability in Stratified Fluids

Cited by in corpus (21)

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