Lagrangian Approach in Experiments with Standing Surface Waves

Abstract New experimental results on studying lower Faraday wave modes on the surface of a liquid in a rectangular vessel are given. It is shown that the amplitude of oscillations of the standing wave nodes increases with decrease in the liquid depth and the wave profiles are characterized by local mobile disturbances associated with the manifestation of a second harmonic relative to the fundamental one. For the first time, the trajectories of tracer particles on the free liquid surface near a node were experimentally determined; the particles oscillate along curves with upward convexity. A comparison of experimental and theoretical data demonstrated the empirical validity of the Lagrangian approach.