Nonlinear energy transfer in gravity–capillary wave spectra, with applications

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Abstract
The energy flux in gravity-capillary wave spectra has been obtained using Hasselmann's (1962) perturbation analysis for a homogeneous Gaussian sea. As expected, resonant interactions now appear at second order, and a third-order perturbation analysis shows that energy is redistributed from waves with intermediate wavelengths (in the neighbourhood of 1·7 cm) toward gravity and capillary waves. Numerical computations are also obtained for the energy flux and the interaction time of a sharply peaked spectrum consisting of wavenumbers concentrated around a single wavenumber, superposed on a smooth background spectrum. The range of validity of the inviscid results is discussed.