Discovery of propagating trains of oscillons over Faraday waves in a 1D experiment

Abstract

We report the discovery of highly localized structures traveling over a one-dimensional pattern of Faraday waves in a vertically-vibrated fluid layer confined in a thin annular cell. These propagating structures emerge spontaneously beyond a threshold and coexist with the underlying pattern. They move at constant speed, in trains of sharp peaks that co- and counter-propagate along the cell, with velocities largely exceeding the Faraday waves drift. Our results raise the question whether propagating localized structures are also observable in other parametrically driven systems in physics.