| Abstract: |
| Shock waves are non-stationary wave trains characterized by a localized steep gradient across the shock front. In classical shock wave, dissipation plays a role as regulation mechanism. A different type of shock wave is the dispersive shock waves (DSW) that are also non-stationary wave trains that form spontaneously in weakly dispersive media. It corresponds to a sharp soliton front connected to a rapidly varying oscillatory wave with structure envelope. In this case, dispersion is the regularization mechanism.
These DSW are usually observed in shallow water and they are called undular bores. DSW are also observed in various other. The experimental observations of such waves was reported first in 1970 for plasma. Recently Fatome et al. (2014) have shown experimentally and numerically for light propagation in optical fibers that wave breaking leads to the observation of multiple optical dispersive shocks and their interaction under different for-wave mixing configurations.
In this paper, we report the results of an experimental campaign performed in a 200m wavetank with a bathymetry that consists with two flat parts connected by a 1/20 slope. When breathers propagates over this bottom, dispersive shock waves are observed that are very similar to those showed by Fatome et al. (2014). |
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