Order-Disorder Transition in Capillary Ripples

A well-defined order-disorder transition occurs in the capillary waves on a fluid layer driven by vertical oscillation. The transition is characterized by a sharp decline in both the translational correlation length and the long-range orientational order of the pattern, and an onset in the characteristic frequency $f^{*}$ of chaotic fluctuations varying approximately as ${(A-A_d)}^{\frac{1}{2}}$, for driving amplitudes above a threshold $A_d$. The transition is geometry dependent even when the container size is 50-100 times the wavelength.