Defects and drift of structures in parametrically excited capillary ripples

The onset of defects is experimentally studied in a system of capillary waves parametrically excited in a thin layer of liquid with different bottom topography. It is shown that the onset of defects occurs through the excitation of bounded wave-field regions corresponding to the areas with higher depths. The drift of defects and structures is associated with the near-bottom mass flow generated by rapidly decaying surface waves. This work was presented at the Summer Workshop “Dynamic Days” (Nizhny Novgorod, June 30–July 2, 1998) Institute of Applied Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia. Translated from Izvestiya Vysshikh Uchebnykh Zavedenii, Radiofizika, Vol. 41, No. 12, pp. 1537–1542, December, 1998.