Capillary solitons on a levitated medium

A water cylinder deposited on a heated channel levitates on its own generated vapor film owing to the Leidenfrost effect. This experimental setup permits the study of the one-dimensional propagation of surface waves in a free-to-move liquid system. We report the observation of gravity-capillary waves under a dramatic reduction of gravity (up to a factor 30), leading to capillary waves at the centimeter scale. The generated nonlinear structures propagate without deformation and undergo mutual collisions and reflections at the boundaries of the domain. They are identified as Korteweg-de Vries solitons with negative amplitude and subsonic velocity. The typical width and amplitude-dependent velocities are in excellent agreement with theoretical predictions based on a generalized Korteweg-de Vries equation adapted to any substrate geometry. When multiple solitons are present, they interact and form a soliton turbulencelike spectrum.