Relevant length scale of barchan dunes.

A new experiment can create small scale barchan dunes under water: some sand is put on a tray moving periodically and asymmetrically in a water tank, and barchans rapidly form. We measure basic morphological and dynamical properties of these dunes and compare them to field data. These favorable results demonstrate experimentally the relevance of the so-called "saturation length" for the control of the dunes physics.