We report the observation of wave turbulence on the surface of a ferrofluid mechanically forced and submitted to a static normal magnetic field. We show that magnetic surface waves arise only above a critical field. The power spectrum of their amplitudes displays a frequency-power law leading to the observation of a magnetic wave turbulence regime which is experimentally shown to involve a 4-wave interaction process. The existence of the regimes of gravity, magnetic and capillary wave turbulence is reported in the phase space parameters as well as a triple point of coexistence of these three regimes. Most of these features are understood using dimensional analysis or the dispersion relation of the ferrohydrodynamic surface waves.

• Received 1 October 2008

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.244502