Research Seminar – Zachary Taebel

The UNC-CH Earth, Marine and Environmental Sciences Department presents a research seminar from graduate student, Zack Taebel. This event will be held on Tuesday, August 17th, at 10:00 am. This seminar will be remote only and can be joined online via Zoom (Meeting ID: 940 7038 7587).

Seminar Title: Observing the Direct Energy Cascade of Wave Turbulence

Abstract: Wave Turbulence is the statistical treatment of many random, nonlinearly interacting waves which is used to predict the evolution of systems such as the surface of the ocean. The notion of “turbulence” arises from the fact that Wave Turbulence predicts cascades of conserved quantities through scales, just like in hydrodynamic turbulence. In particular, for ocean gravity waves, Wave Turbulence predicts a simultaneous inverse cascade of wave action, and a direct cascade of energy. I will present preliminary results regarding the direct cascade of energy from an experiment which aims to produce the dual cascade in a multidirectional wave tank. We find strong evidence that such a direct cascade which creates higher frequency waves through a resonant transfer of energy from a low frequency forcing.