Tracking the nonlinear formation of an interfacial wave cascade: from one to few to many

A hallmark of far-from-equilibrium systems is the emergence of a spectral cascade, where energy is transferred across lengthscales following a simple power law. The universal nature of this phenomenon has led to advances in a range of disciplines, including climate forecasting [1], foreign exchange trading [2], and the modelling of neurological activity [3]. For many diverse scenarios, the scaling laws of steady states have been successfully predicted by the statistical theory of weak wave turbulence, originally developed by considering the leading order interactions between waves on a fluid surface [4]. However, the predictive power of this theory breaks down in the presence of large amplitudes, high dissipation, and finite-size effects [5]. We offer new insight into these regimes by experimentally tracking the formation of a spectral cascade in an externally driven fluidfluid interface. We resolve individual wave modes and observe their time evolution from one to few to many, a process culminating in a steady state with a spectral density characterised by a power-law scaling. Our findings confirm that interfacial dynamics can be effectively modelled by a weakly nonlinear Lagrangian theory [6, 7], a predictive framework encompassing both underlying wave interaction and emergent behaviours. Such nonlinear interactions are experimentally quantified through statistical correlations, revealing a hierarchy in wave-mixing order that confirms a key assumption of weak wave turbulence theory [4, 8]. The Lagrangian formulation further aids our time-evolution analysis; specific interactions are tracked through time, and we predict the timescale until a cascade emerges. Our findings are transferable to other far-from-equilibrium systems, which we demonstrate by providing a mapping to reheating scenarios following cosmic inflation in the early Universe [9, 10].