From coherent shocklets to giant collective incoherent shock waves in nonlocal turbulent flows

G. Xu, D. Vocke, D. Faccio (), J. Garnier, T. Roger, S. Trillo and A. Picozzi
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G. Xu: Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne (ICB), UMR 6303 CNRS—Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté
D. Vocke: School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, SUPA, Heriot-Watt University
D. Faccio: School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, SUPA, Heriot-Watt University
J. Garnier: Laboratoire de Probabilités et Modèles Aléatoires, University Paris Diderot
T. Roger: School of Engineering and Physical Sciences, SUPA, Heriot-Watt University
S. Trillo: University of Ferrara
A. Picozzi: Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire Carnot de Bourgogne (ICB), UMR 6303 CNRS—Université Bourgogne Franche-Comté

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract Understanding turbulent flows arising from random dispersive waves that interact strongly through nonlinearities is a challenging issue in physics. Here we report the observation of a characteristic transition: strengthening the nonlocal character of the nonlinear response drives the system from a fully turbulent regime, featuring a sea of coherent small-scale dispersive shock waves (shocklets) towards the unexpected emergence of a giant collective incoherent shock wave. The front of such global incoherent shock carries most of the stochastic fluctuations and is responsible for a peculiar folding of the local spectrum. Nonlinear optics experiments performed in a solution of graphene nano-flakes clearly highlight this remarkable transition. Our observations shed new light on the role of long-range interactions in strongly nonlinear wave systems operating far from thermodynamic equilibrium, which reveals analogies with, for example, gravitational systems, and establishes a new scenario that can be common to many turbulent flows in photonic quantum fluids, hydrodynamics and Bose–Einstein condensates.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms9131

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