Linear waves at a surfactant-contaminated interface separating two fluids: Dispersion and dissipation of capillary-gravity waves

Two-dimensional linear waves at a contaminated interface separating two infinitely deep fluids of arbitrary densities and viscosities are investigated. The contamination is modeled as a massless monolayer, which may result from insoluble surfactants, and introduces interfacial elasticity. Thus, the interface supports two wave modes: transverse, capillary-gravity waves (CG-waves) and longitudinal, Marangoni waves (M-waves). A comprehensive dispersion relation is derived; it can be solved numerically to obtain the complex-valued frequency as a function of the irrotational wavenumber for the CG-waves and for the M-waves. The CG-waves are analyzed in this paper; the M-waves are analyzed in a separate work. The main result here is the derivation of an operational approximate formula for the temporal decay rate of the CG-waves. Its predictions are compared to the available measurements of (laboratory) gravity waves, ocean swell, and (laboratory) capillary waves. It is shown that the previously published decay rate models, which include either the effects due to an upper fluid or those due to interfacial contamination (but not both), are limiting cases of the present model. A parametric study of decay rate predictions shows that there are systems including ocean swell for which the influence of both the dynamics of the upper fluid and of the contamination are significant.