On the spectra of strong turbulence on water surfaces
Abstract
Here, I give a brief history of the theory, with twists and turns, and list possible predictions for the spectra of the direct cascade of gravity waves on the water. The description of long waves is straightforward within the weak-turbulence theory developed by Zakharov and his school. As the energy cascade proceeds to shorter scales, the mean surface steepness grows, and wave-breaking events appear with increasing frequency. Considering surface cusps, Phillips suggested a wavenumber spectrum (with a wrong magnitude, as I argue here) and a frequency spectrum whose whole form is incorrect. The right form for the frequency spectral slope due to breaking waves was suggested by Kuznetsov. Here we estimate the magnitude and argue that the frequency spectrum is expected to continue unchanged through the whole cascade. The transition from weak to strong turbulence in the wavenumber and spatio-temporal spectra is due to spectrally nonlocal interactions and happens earlier (at larger scales) than the dimensional estimate suggests. As a result, the magnitude of the strong-turbulence spectrum is not universal but depends on the pumping for a sufficiently long weak-turbulence cascade. The reason for nonlocality is likely that breaking of shorter waves is determined by the magnitude of the longest wave on whose crest they are running.
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BibTeX
@misc{falkovich2026spectra,
title = {{On the spectra of strong turbulence on water surfaces}},
author = {Gregory Falkovich},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2610.00777},
eprint = {2610.00777},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.00777},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - On the spectra of strong turbulence on water surfaces
AU - Gregory Falkovich
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/01
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2610.00777
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.00777
AB - Here, I give a brief history of the theory, with twists and turns, and list possible predictions for the spectra of the direct cascade of gravity waves on the water. The description of long waves is straightforward within the weak-turbulence theory developed by Zakharov and his school. As the energy cascade proceeds to shorter scales, the mean surface steepness grows, and wave-breaking events appear with increasing frequency. Considering surface cusps, Phillips suggested a wavenumber spectrum (with a wrong magnitude, as I argue here) and a frequency spectrum whose whole form is incorrect. The right form for the frequency spectral slope due to breaking waves was suggested by Kuznetsov. Here we estimate the magnitude and argue that the frequency spectrum is expected to continue unchanged through the whole cascade. The transition from weak to strong turbulence in the wavenumber and spatio-temporal spectra is due to spectrally nonlocal interactions and happens earlier (at larger scales) than the dimensional estimate suggests. As a result, the magnitude of the strong-turbulence spectrum is not universal but depends on the pumping for a sufficiently long weak-turbulence cascade. The reason for nonlocality is likely that breaking of shorter waves is determined by the magnitude of the longest wave on whose crest they are running.
ER -