Fadaeiazar Elmira, Leontini Justin, Onorato Miguel, Waseda Takuji, Alberello Alberto, Toffoli Alessandro
Department of Mechanical and Product Design Engineering, Swinburne University of Technology, 3122 Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia.
Dipartimento di Fisica, Universitá di Torino, 10125 Torino, Italy and INFN, 10125 Torino, Italy.
Phys Rev E. 2020 Jul;102(1-1):013106. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevE.102.013106.
We examine and discuss the spatial evolution of the statistical properties of mechanically generated surface gravity wave fields, initialized with unidirectional spectral energy distributions, uniformly distributed phases, and Rayleigh distributed amplitudes. We demonstrate that nonlinear interactions produce an energy cascade towards high frequency modes with a directional spread and trigger localized intermittent bursts. By analyzing the probability density function of Fourier mode amplitudes in the high frequency range of the wave energy spectrum, we show that a heavy-tailed distribution emerges with distance from the wave generator as a result of these intermittent bursts, departing from the originally imposed Rayleigh distribution, even under relatively weak nonlinear conditions.
