Observations of gravity-capillary lump interactions

In this experimental study, we investigate the interaction of gravity-capillary solitary waves generated by two surface pressure sources moving side by side at constant speed. The nonlinear response of a water surface to a single source moving at a speed just below the minimum phase speed of linear gravity-capillary waves in deep water ($c_{min}\approx23$ cm s$^{-1}$) consists of periodic generation of pairs of three-dimensional solitary waves (or lumps) in a V-shaped pattern downstream of the source. In the reference frame of the laboratory, these unsteady lumps propagate in a direction oblique to the motion of the source. In the present experiments, the strengths of the two sources are adjusted to produce nearly identical responses and the free-surface deformations are visualized using photography-based techniques. The first lumps generated by the two sources move in intersecting directions that make a half angle of approximately 15 degrees and collide in the centerplane between the sources. A steep depression is formed during the collision, but this depression quickly decreases in amplitude while radiating small-amplitude radial waves. After the collision, a quasi-stable pattern is formed with several rows of localized depressions that are qualitatively similar to lumps but exhibit periodic amplitude oscillations, similar to a breather. The shape of the wave pattern and the period of oscillations depend strongly on the distance between the sources.