Searching for chaotic deterministic features in laboratory water surface waves

The dynamic evolution of laboratory water surface waves has been studied within the framework of dynamical systems with the aim to identify stochastic or deterministic nonlinear features. Three different regimes are considered: pure wind waves, pure mechanical waves and mixed (wind and mechanical) waves. These three regimes show different dynamics. The results on wind waves do not clearly support the recently proposed idea that a deterministic Stokes-like component dominate the evolution of such waves; they are more appropriately described by a similarity-like approach that includes a random character. Cubic resonant interactions are clearly identified in pure mechanical waves using tricoherence functions. However, detailed aspects of the interactions do not fully agree with existing theoretical models. Finally, a deterministic motion is observed in mixed waves, which therefore are best described by a low dimensional nonlinear deterministic process