Emergence of Peregrine solitons in integrable turbulence of deep water gravity waves

Abstract

The propagation of random water waves is experimentally investigated in a 150-m-long flume. The emergence of high-amplitude localized structures by nonlinear self-focusing, which correlates to some statistical properties of surface elevation, is reported. A systematic study reveals to what extent these structures are locally akin to Peregrine solitons, a famous prototype of rogue waves.