title: Capillary rogue waves.
abstract: We report the first observation of extreme wave events (rogue waves) in parametrically driven capillary waves. Rogue waves are observed above a certain threshold in forcing. Above this threshold, frequency spectra broaden and develop exponential tails. For the first time we present evidence of strong four-wave coupling in nonlinear waves (high tricoherence), which points to modulation instability as the main mechanism in rogue waves. The generation of rogue waves is identified as the onset of a distinct tail in the probability density function of the wave heights. Their probability is higher than expected from the measured wave background.
authors.affiliation: Research School of Physics and Engineering, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia. Michael.Shats@anu.edu.au
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Shats
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Punzmann
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Xia