On the kurtosis of deep-water gravity waves

DOI10.1017/JFM.2015.538zbMATH Open1381.76040arXiv1412.8231OpenAlexW3105735037MaRDI QIDQ2807124FDOQ2807124

Francesco Fedele

Publication date: 19 May 2016

Published in: Journal of Fluid Mechanics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: In this paper, we revisit Janssen's (2003) formulation for the dynamic excess kurtosis of weakly nonlinear gravity waves at deep water. For narrowband directional spectra, the formulation is given by a sixfold integral that depends upon the Benjamin-Feir index and the parameter $R=sigm{a}_{heta}^2/2u^2$, a measure of short-crestedness for the dominant waves with $u$ and $sigm{a}_{heta}$} denoting spectral bandwidth and angular spreading. Our refinement leads to a new analytical solution for the dynamic kurtosis of narrowband directional waves described with a Gaussian type spectrum. For multidirectional or short-crested seas initially homogenous and Gaussian, in a focusing (defocusing) regime dynamic kurtosis grows initially, attaining a positive maximum (negative minimum) at the intrinsic time scale [ au_{c}=

u^{2}omega_{0}t_{c}=1/sqrt{3R},qquadmathrm{or}qquad t_{c}/T_{0}approx0.13/

usigma_{ heta}, ] where $omeg{a}_0=2pi/T_0$ denotes the dominant angular frequency. Eventually the dynamic excess kurtosis tends monotonically to zero as the wave field reaches a quasi-equilibrium state characterized with nonlinearities mainly due to bound harmonics. Quasi-resonant interactions are dominant only in unidirectional or long-crested seas where the longer-time dynamic kurtosis can be larger than that induced by bound harmonics, especially as the Benjamin-Feir index increases. Finally, we discuss the implication of these results on the prediction of rogue waves.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1412.8231

zbMATH Keywords

surface gravity waveswaves/free-surface flowswave-turbulence interactions

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Water waves, gravity waves; dispersion and scattering, nonlinear interaction (76B15) Hydrology, hydrography, oceanography (86A05) Waves for incompressible viscous fluids (76D33)

Cited In (8)

• Extreme wave statistics in combined and partitioned windsea and swell
• Crest speeds of unsteady surface water waves
• Anomalous waves triggered by abrupt depth changes: laboratory experiments and truncated KdV statistical mechanics
• Statistics of rogue waves in isotropic wave fields
• Spatial evolution of the kurtosis of steep unidirectional random waves
• Semi-rational solutions of the third-type Davey-Stewartson equation
• HOS-ocean: open-source solver for nonlinear waves in open ocean based on high-order spectral method
• Asymptotics for the long-time evolution of kurtosis of narrow-band ocean waves

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