Abstract
We report a subcritical excitation mechanism of zonal flow in drift wave turbulence. Employing the reductive perturbation method, it is shown that the evolution of eikonal phase of the drift wave is governed by a KdV-type equation in the (amplitude) modulational stable regime. A phase pulse train then emerges and generates potential vorticity barrier or staircases. The spatial structure of the zonal flow pattern is given analytically.
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