Decay of capillary turbulence on the surface of a viscous liquid

Abstract

Decay of the turbulence of capillary waves on the surface of a real liquid is studied in the presence of the viscous damping of the waves at all frequencies after stepwise removal of external pumping. The investigation is performed using two different models: the weak turbulence approximation and the local turbulence model in which the energy redistribution over frequencies is described by the polynomial expression in the wave-occupation number. It is shown that the decay of turbulence in the viscous liquid proceeds self-similarly and begins at high frequencies. In the decay process, the frequency distribution of the energy of waves is close to the stationary form Eω ∼ ω−3/2 in a wide frequency range below the boundary frequency of the inertial range during a relatively long time after removal of the external force. The calculation results agree qualitatively with the results of the experiments on capillary turbulence on the charged surface of liquid hydrogen.