Experimental study of the inverse cascade in gravity wave turbulence

TL;DR

This experimental study investigates the inverse cascade in gravity wave turbulence, observing wave spectra and power scaling consistent with weak turbulence theory, and analyzing power fluctuation distributions.

Contribution

The paper provides experimental evidence of inverse cascade phenomena in gravity wave turbulence and compares observed spectra with theoretical predictions.

Findings

Spectrum exhibits a power-law at high forcing

Spectrum amplitude scales linearly with injected power

Power fluctuation distributions vary with cascade direction

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.