Dissipative Solitary States in Driven Surface Waves

We present an experimental study of highly localized, solitonlike structures that propagate on the two-dimensional surface of highly dissipative fluids. Like the well-known Faraday instability, these highly dissipative structures are driven by means of the spatially uniform, vertical acceleration of a thin fluid layer. These structures, harmonically coupled to the external driving frequency, are observed above a critical ratio of the viscous boundary layer height to the depth of the fluid layer for a wide range of fluid viscosities and system parameters.