68th Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics (November 22, 2015 — November 24, 2015)

V0064: Shedding light on pilot wave phenomena

Authors

• Dan Harris, Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Victor Prost, Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Julio Quintela, Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• P.-T. Brun, Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• John W. M. Bush, Department of Mathematics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/APS.DFD.2015.GFM.V0064

The reflection of a regular pattern from a liquid surface can be distorted by even the smallest undulations. We here use this phenomenon to visualize micrometric surface waves generated as a millimetric droplet bounces on the surface of a vibrating oil bath. This system, discovered a decade ago by Yves Couder and Emmanuel Fort, is of current interest as a hydrodynamic quantum analogue; specifically, the walking droplets exhibit several features reminiscent of quantum particles. Our experiment sheds light on the interaction between the droplet and its guiding wave,  yielding visualization of the pilot-wave dynamics.