Anatomy of a wave

A perturbation is induced at the sheared interface between a stream of liquid and a stream of gas. This initial perturbation then evolves as the response of inertia, viscosity and interfacial tension. We observe that the wave obtained by this procedure tends to a self-similar regime after a short transient. We describe the anatomy of this well-defined growing wave as the physical parameter are varied, in particular as the density ratio of the two phases is changed. This study is aimed at identifying a possible recurrent agent in atomization processes.