Experimental generation of axisymmetric internal wave super-harmonics

Abstract

In this paper, we present an experimental study of weakly non-linear interaction of axisymmetric internal gravity waves in a resonant cavity, supported by theoretical considerations. Contrary to plane waves in Cartesian coordinates, for which self-interacting terms are null in a linear stratifiation, the non-linear self-interaction of an internal wave mode in axisymmetric geometry is found to be efficient at producing super-harmonics, i.e. waves whose frequencies are integer multiples of the excitation frequency. Due to the range of frequencies tested in our experiments, the first harmonic frequency is below the cut-off imposed by the stratification so the lowest harmonic created can always propagate. The study shows that the super-harmonic wave field is a sum of standing waves satisfying both the dispersion relation for internal waves and the boundary conditions imposed by the cavity walls, while conserving the axisymmetry.