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Fluid motion under water waves includes an Eulerian return flow in the direction opposite to wave propagation that is of importance for accurately modelling the transport of tracers in the ocean like sediments, plastic pollution, oil, etc. The return flow is related to the mean flow, that is to the derivative in space of the zero-harmonic component of the velocity potential φ0. It turns out that this component is not consistently taken into account in some derivations of the high-order nonlinear Schrödinger equation (HONLS) using the multiscale development at arbitrary depth, which therefore do not correctly reproduce experimental results in the deep-water limit. We show how to formulate a Neumann problem for φ0 that can be solved at fourth order in steepness for arbitrary depth. The derivative of such term is thus included in the HONLS in both cases of propagation in time and in space. We compare the results of the simulations obtained using our model to those obtained with previously published fourth-order models without the mean-flow term, to observations and to accurate simulations performed with the high-order spectral method. While our model is equivalent to alternative formulations in intermediate water, it is more accurate in deep water. Our model therefore provides the first fourth-order NLS relevant for depths ranging from intermediate to deep water.

We derive a simple algebraic form of the nonlinear wavenumber correction of unidirectional surface gravity waves in deep water, based on temporal measurements of the water surface and the spatial Zakharov equation. This allows us to formulate an improvement over linear deterministic wave forecasting with no additional computational cost. Our new formulation is used to forecast both synthetically generated as well as experimentally measured seas and shows marked improvements over the linear theory.

We theoretically and experimentally examine the effect of forcing and damping on systems that can be described by the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation (NLSE), by making use of the phase-space predictions of the three-wave truncation of the spectrum. In the latter, only the fundamental frequency and the upper and lower sidebands are retained. Plane wave solutions to the NLSE exhibit modulation instability (MI) within a frequency band determined by a linear stability analysis. For modulation frequencies inside the MI-band, we experimentally demonstrate that forcing and damping cause a separatrix crossing during the evolution. Our experiments are performed on deep water waves, which are better described by the higher-order NLSE, the Dysthe equation. We therefore extend our analysis to this system. However, our conclusions are general. When the system is damped by the viscosity of the water, it is pulled outside the separatrix, which in the real space corresponds to a phase-shift of the envelope and therefore doubles the period of the Fermi-Pasta-Ulam-Tsingou recurrence cycle. When the system is forced by the wind, it is pulled inside the separatrix. Furthermore, for modulation frequencies outside the conventional MI-band, we experimentally demonstrate that contrary to the linear prediction, we do observe a growth and decay cycle of the plane-wave modulation. Finally, we give a theoretical demonstration that forcing the NLSE system can induce symmetry breaking during the evolution., Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures

The viscosity of water induces a vorticity near the free surface boundary. The resulting rotational component of the fluid velocity vector greatly complicates the water wave system. Several approaches to close this system have been proposed. Our analysis compares three common sets of model equations. The first set has a rotational kinematic boundary condition at the surface. In the second set, a gauge choice for the velocity vector is made that cancels the rotational contribution in the kinematic boundary condition, at the cost of rotational velocity in the bulk and a rotational pressure. The third set circumvents the problem by introducing two domains: the irrotational bulk and the vortical boundary layer. This comparison puts forward the link between rotational pressure on the surface and vorticity in the boundary layer, addresses the existence of nonlinear vorticity terms, and shows where approximations have been used in the models. Furthermore, we examine the conservation of mass for the three systems, and how this can be compared to the irrotational case., 32 pages, 5 figures

We study statistical properties after a sudden episode of wind for water waves propagating in one direction. A wave with random initial conditions is propagated using a forced-damped higher order Nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation (NLS). During the wind episode, the wave action increases, the spectrum broadens, the spectral mean shifts up and the Benjamin-Feir index (BFI) and the kurtosis increase. Conversely, after the wind episode, the opposite occurs for each quantity. The kurtosis of the wave height distribution is considered the main parameter that can indicate whether rogue waves are likely to occur in a sea state, and the BFI is often mentioned as a means to predict the kurtosis. However, we find that while there is indeed a quadratic relation between these two, this relationship is dependent on the details of the forcing and damping. Instead, a simple and robust quadratic relation does exist between the kurtosis and the bandwidth. This could allow for a single-spectrum assessment of the likelihood of rogue waves in a given sea state. In addition, as the kurtosis depends strongly on the damping and forcing coefficients, by combining the bandwidth measurement with the damping coefficient, the evolution of the kurtosis after the wind episode can be predicted., Comment: 30 pages, 12 figures

We discuss the impact of viscosity on nonlinear propagation of surface waves at the interface of air and a fluid of large depth. After a survey of the available approximations of the dispersion relation, we propose to modify the hydrodynamic boundary conditions to model both short and long waves. From them, we derive a nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation where both linear and nonlinear parts are modified by dissipation and show that the former plays the main role in both gravity and capillary-gravity waves while, in most situations, the latter represents only small corrections. This provides a justification of the conventional approaches to damped propagation found in the literature., Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures

We study a three-wave truncation of a recently proposed damped/forced high-order nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation for deep-water gravity waves under the effect of wind and viscosity. The evolution of the norm (wave-action) and spectral mean of the full model are well captured by the reduced dynamics. Three regimes are found for the wind-viscosity balance: we classify them according to the attractor in the phase-plane of the truncated system and to the shift of the spectral mean. A downshift can coexist with both net forcing and damping, i.e., attraction to period-1 or period-2 solutions. Upshift is associated with stronger winds, i.e., to a net forcing where the attractor is always a period-1 solution. The applicability of our classification to experiments in long wave-tanks is verified., Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures

We experimentally and numerically investigate the effect of wind forcing on the spectral dynamics of Akhmediev breathers, a wave-type known to model the modulation instability. We develop the wind model to the same order in steepness as the higher order modifcation of the nonlinear Schroedinger equation, also referred to as the Dysthe equation. This results in an asymmetric wind term in the higher order, in addition to the leading order wind forcing term. The derived model is in good agreement with laboratory experiments within the range of the facility's length. We show that the leading order forcing term amplifies all frequencies equally and therefore induces only a broadening of the spectrum while the asymmetric higher order term in the model enhances higher frequencies more than lower ones. Thus, the latter term induces a permanent upshift of the spectral mean. On the other hand, in contrast to the direct effect of wind forcing, wind can indirectly lead to frequency downshifts, due to dissipative effects such as wave breaking, or through amplification of the intrinsic spectral asymmetry of the Dysthe equation. Furthermore, the definitions of the up- and downshift in terms of peak- and mean frequencies, that are critical to relate our work to previous results, are highlighted and discussed., 30 pages, 11 figures

We study the triggering of single filaments due to turbulence in the beam path for a laser of power below the filamenting threshold. Turbulence can act as a switch between the beam not filamenting and producing single filaments. This 'positive' effect of turbulence on the filament probability, combined with our observation of off-axis filaments suggests the underlying mechanism is modulation instability caused by transverse perturbations. We hereby experimentally explore the interaction of modulation instability and turbulence, commonly associated with multiple-filaments, in the single-filament regime., 5 pages, 6 figures

We use magnetoconductance measurements in dual-gated InSb nanowire devices together with a theoretical analysis of weak antilocalization to accurately extract spin-orbit strength. In particular, we show that magnetoconductance in our three-dimensional wires is very different compared to wires in two-dimensional electron gases. We obtain a large Rashba spin-orbit strength of $0.5 -1\,\text{eV\r{A}}$ corresponding to a spin-orbit energy of $0.25-1\,\text{meV}$. These values underline the potential of InSb nanowires in the study of Majorana fermions in hybrid semiconductor-superconductor devices., Comment: Version as accepted for publication as a Rapid in Phys. Rev. B

One of the promising platforms for creating Majorana bound states is a hybrid nanostructure consisting of a semiconducting nanowire covered by a superconductor. We analyze the previously disregarded role of electrostatic interaction in these devices. Our main result is that Coulomb interaction causes the chemical potential to respond to an applied magnetic field, while spin-orbit interaction and screening by the superconducting lead suppress this response. Consequently, the electrostatic environment influences two properties of Majorana devices: the shape of the topological phase boundary and the oscillations of the Majorana splitting energy. We demonstrate that both properties show a non-universal behavior, and depend on the details of the electrostatic environment. We show that when the wire only contains a single electron mode, the experimentally accessible inverse self-capacitance of this mode fully captures the interplay between electrostatics and Zeeman field. This offers a way to compare theoretical predictions with experiments., 12 pages, 13 figures