Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 15, 2026

Fabrication and Testing of Microfluidic Optomechanical Oscillators
Published on: May 29, 2014
Doppler effect of nonlinear waves and superspirals in oscillatory media
Lutz Brusch1, Alessandro Torcini, Markus Bär
1MPI for Physics of Complex Systems, Nöthnitzer Strasse 38, D-01187 Dresden, Germany.
Abstract:
Nonlinear waves emitted from a moving source are studied. A meandering spiral in a reaction-diffusion medium provides an example in which waves originate from a source exhibiting a back-and-forth movement in a radial direction. The periodic motion of the source induces a Doppler effect that causes a modulation in wavelength and amplitude of the waves ("superspiral"). Using direct simulations as well as numerical nonlinear analysis within the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation, we show that waves subject to a convective Eckhaus instability can exhibit monotonic growth or decay as well as saturation of these modulations depending on the perturbation frequency. Our findings elucidate recent experimental observations concerning superspirals and their decay to spatiotemporal chaos.
Related Concept Videos
Interference and Superposition of Waves
Interference occurs in mechanical waves, such as sound waves, waves on a string, and surface water waves. Mechanical waves correspond to the physical displacement of particles. Hence,...
Propagation of Waves
Consider a scenario where a wave propagates from a string of low linear mass density to a string of high linear mass density. In such a case, the reflected wave is out of phase with respect to the incident wave, however the...
Sound Waves: Interference
Doppler Effect - I
Doppler Effect - II
Shock Waves
When the source's speed approaches the speed of sound, constructive interference between successive wavefronts emitted by the source occurs immediately behind it. Initially, scientists believed that this constructive interference would result in such high pressures...

