Secondary Faraday waves in microgravity

Abstract

Abstract Recent microgravity experiments have demonstrated that Faraday waves can arise in a secondary instability over the primary columnar patterns that develop after the frozen wave instability. While some numerical studies have investigated this phenomenon, theoretical analyses are only found in the works of Shevtsova et al. (2016) [1] and Lyubimova et al. (2019) [2]. Here, we extend these efforts by analysing the stability of a three-layer system, and derive the critical onset of Faraday waves, which appear via Hopf bifurcation. Numerical simulations — based on a model that reproduces the frozen wave mode with lowest wavenumber — are carried out to test this result and to analyse the character of the bifurcation. The predicted Hopf bifurcation is confirmed, which constitutes the first observation of modulated secondary Faraday waves. The abrupt growth of these modulated waves above onset indicates that the primary bifurcation is subcritical and is accompanied by a saddle-node bifurcation of periodic orbits that stabilises the (branch of) unstable solutions created in the subcritical Hopf bifurcation. Further above onset, these modulated waves are destroyed via a saddle-node heteroclinic bifurcation. Results for an N-layer configuration, which represents a more general frozen wave pattern, are also presented and compared with the three-layer case.