Wave turbulence in the ocean

Courant instructor Michal Shavit  together with professors Oliver Bühler and Jalal Shatah published a paper in Physical Review Letters  on a theoretical model for internal wave turbulence in the ocean, a longstanding and difficult problem relevant to vertical mixing in the deep ocean.  Their new  model goes beyond prior work by using the full, non-hydrostatic dispersion relation for internal waves and by producing a two-dimensional energy spectrum in agreement with the celebrated Garrett—Munk spectrum known from observations.  Both are firsts in the field.