Generation of acoustic solitons by a single-mode electromagnetic field

Mechanisms of acoustic pulse generation by a single-mode electromagnetic field propagating in a photoelastic material are analyzed. The anisotropy induced by acoustic excitations in an isotropic medium leads to nonlinear coupling between the polarization components of a single-mode electromagnetic field. For different conditions, it is shown that the acoustic-electromagnetic wave interaction due to mixing of the polarization components of light and acoustic waves can give rise to soliton-like coherent acoustic excitations in a thin crystal plate. When spatial dispersion is ignored, the governing system of equations for unidirectional acoustic solitons can be reduced to an integrable model. It is shown that qualitatively different scenarios of formation of acoustic solitons are possible, depending on the directions of deformation and field polarization.     

Sound field of thermoacoustic tomography based on a modified finite-difference time-domain method

A modified finite-difference time-domain （FDTD） method is proposed for the sound field simulation of the thermoacoustic tomography （TAT） in the acoustic speed inhomogeneous medium. First, the basic equations of the TAT are discretized to difference ones by the FDTD. Then the electromagnetic pulse, the excitation source of the TAT, is modified twice to eliminate the error introduced by high frequency electromagnetic waves. Computer simulations are carried out to validate this method. It is shown that the FDTD method has a better accuracy than the commonly used time-of-flight （TOF） method in the TAT with the inhomogeneous acoustic speed. The error of the FDTD is ten times smaller than that of the TOF in the simulation for the acoustic speed difference larger than 50%. So this FDTD method is an efficient one for the sound field simulation of the TAT and can provide the theoretical basis for the study of reconstruction algorithms of the TAT in the acoustic heterogeneous medium.     

Effect of a polar environment on the resonant generation of higher optical harmonics by dipole molecules

An analysis is made of the effect of fluctuations of a polar environment on the resonant generation of higher optical harmonics by dipole molecules in a strong electromagnetic field. The cases of slow and strong fluctuations of the environment are considered. It is shown that the electric fields produced by fluctuating dipole moments of the medium lead to anomalous temperature dependences of the scattered-radiation intensity. In the case of slow fluctuations and some additional conditions, the harmonic intensity exponentially increases with temperature. In contrast, in the case of rapid fluctuations under exact resonant conditions, the harmonic intensity decreases with increasing temperature. Under nonresonant excitation of molecules, a polar medium has no effect on the generation of higher harmonics.     

Interaction between a composite compression wave and a vortex in a thermodynamically nonideal medium

A numerical analysis is presented of two-dimensional interaction between a transverse vortex and a composite compression wave that can exist in a thermodynamically nonideal medium. It is shown that the interaction of a composite wave involving a “neutrally stable” shock with a vortex generates weakly damped outgoing acoustic waves; i.e., the shock is a source of sound. This phenomenon increases the post-shock acoustic noise level in an initially turbulent flow.     

Acousto-Optic Solitons in Fibers

It is shown that the deceleration of light pulses down to the velocity of a sound value can be realized in a case of unidirectional parametric interaction of two electromagnetic waves with an acoustic one in the regime of forming three wave acousto-optic solitons. This nonlinear acousto-optic interaction can be realized in long distance systems like fibers. As the result of such an interaction, two types of acousto-optic envelope solitons can propagate in fibers. Modulation of the amplitude of the electromagnetic pump wave can control the soliton velocity.     

On acoustic stimulation of atmospheric precipitation

Stimulation of atmospheric precipitation by acoustic waves is considered. The interaction of acoustic waves with fog particles and the acoustic coagulation phenomenon are analyzed. It is proposed that the effect of amplification of sound in a weakly ionized gas be used to prevent sound decay away from the source in a foggy environment.     

Low-frequency sound transmission through a gas-liquid interface

Typically, sound speed in gases is smaller and mass density is much smaller than in liquids, resulting in a very strong acoustic impedance contrast at a gas-liquid interface. Sound transmission through a boundary with a strong impedance contrast is normally very weak. This paper studies the power output of localized sound sources and acoustic power fluxes through a plane gas-liquid interface in a layered medium. It is shown that, for low-frequency sound, a phenomenon of anomalous transparency can occur where most of the acoustic power generated by a source in a liquid half-space can be radiated into a gas half-space. The main physical mechanism responsible for anomalous transparency is found to be an acoustic power transfer by inhomogeneous (evanescent) waves in the plane-wave decomposition of the acoustic field in the liquid. The effects of a liquid's stratification and of guided sound propagation in the liquid on the anomalous transparency of the gas-liquid interface are considered. Geophysical and biological implications of anomalous transparency of water-air interface to infrasound are indicated.     

Interaction of a spherical acoustic wave with an elastic spherical shell

The interaction of a spherical acoustic wave with an elastic spherical shell is treated analytically. The solution includes the coupling between the acoustic sound field and vibration of the shell with any degree of fluid loading. The formulation for the far-field acoustic pressure is derived in terms of natural spherical wave functions, the properties of the acoustic medium, and the material constants of the shell. The far acoustic field is computed for a thin aluminum shell and several sound source locations over a large range of ka, where k is the wavenumber, and a is the shell radius. It is shown that the acoustic pressure depends significantly on whether the shell is in air or is submerged in water, particularly when the sound source is very near the surface. In air, the sound field of the shell is nearly identical to that of a rigid sphere but, in water, the shell is more compliant, which results in a damped radiation field that is characterized by vibrational resonances throughout the range of frequencies considered. As the sound sources is moved further away from the surface, however, this resonance response decreases very rapidly, and the sound field corresponds more closely to that of the shell in air.     

On the possibility of using acoustic reverberation for remote sensing of ocean dynamics

The two-point correlation function of diffuse noise fields produced by distributed random sound sources carries useful information on the medium of sound propagation. Such information can be used for performing passive acoustic tomography of the ocean. In a number of cases that are important for practice, the noise field in the ocean is predominated by contributions of individual point sources. Here, a theoretical study is presented on the possibility of determining the sound speed and current velocity in the water column by the correlation processing of reverberation signals measured by two vertical receiving arrays. In other words, we study the possibility of replacing the diffuse noise produced by a great number of delta-correlated sources by waves generated by a localized source and scattered at the rough surface and bottom of the ocean for sensing the medium. The correlation function of scattered waves is calculated by using the method of small perturbations. It is shown that the correlation processing of the scattered waves offers an opportunity of measuring the acoustic nonreciprocity and reconstructing the field of sound speed in the fluid, without using any acoustiLc transceivers.     

Acousto-electric well logging by eccentric source and extraction of shear wave

The nonaxisymmetric acousto-electric field excited by an eccentric acoustic source in the borehole based on Pride seismoelectric theory is considered. It is shown that the acoustic field inside the borehole, converted electric and magnetic fields and coupled fields outside the borehole are composed of an infinitude of multipole fields with different orders. The numerical results show that both the electromagnetic waves and the seismoelectric field in the borehole, and the three components of both electric field and magnetic field can be detected. Measurements on the borehole axis will be of advantage to determining shear velocity information. The components of the symmetric and nonsymmetric acoustic and electromagnetic fields can be strengthened or weakened by adding or subtracting the two full waveforms logged in some azimuths. It may be a new method of directly measuring the shear wave velocity by using the borehole seismoelectric effect.     

Phase fluctuations of focused low-frequency sound fields in shallow water

Numerical experiments are carried out to study the phase fluctuations of a focused low-frequency sound field on an oceanic shelf. The focusing of sound at a distance of several kilometers is simulated using the phase conjugation of sound waves. Perturbations of the medium are represented by high-frequency (>1 cph) background internal waves and by the wind waves on the ocean surface. It is shown that, for a focused sound field at frequencies of several hundreds of hertz, the phase fluctuations do not exceed π and can be measured against the background of acoustic noise typical of shallow-water regions of the ocean. The fluctuation magnitude can be reduced approximately by half through the optimal choice of the mode composition. In the presence of such fluctuations, it is possible to measure the relative variations of the length of a stationary acoustic path with an accuracy of 1 m or better at a wind speed no greater than 10 m/s and a typical intensity of background internal waves.     

Interaction of Three Electromagnetic Fields with a Resonance Medium in EPR. The Case of a Small Local Field in Comparison with the Saturating One

A system of Bloch equations modified with allowance for the presence of a dipole–dipole reservoir for the case where the local magnetic field is small in comparison with the saturating one is suggested. The system is used for solving the problem of interaction of three electromagnetic fields: a saturating field, a probe one, and the third - a combination field resulting from the interaction of the first two in a resonance medium. The imaginary and real parts of the system susceptibility at the probe-field frequency have been investigated in detail at both different frequencies of interacting waves and coinciding ones (degenerate case). For the degenerate case, the dependence of the coefficient of the parametric connection of waves on the frequency is considered. The results of the present work are compared with those obtained by us earlier for the case where the local magnetic field is much in excess of the saturating one (Provotorov's case). It is shown that in the problem considered the amplification of weak waves when they pass through the layer of an absorbing resonance medium is inaccessible.     

Nonlinear wave interactions in porous media filled with a quantum fluid

The problem of the nonlinear interaction between the fourth sound and an acoustic wave propagating in a porous medium filled with superfluid helium is solved. Based on the Landau equations of quantum fluid dynamics and on the Biot theory of mechanical waves in a porous medium, nonlinear wave equations are derived for studying the aforementioned interaction. An expression is obtained for the vertex that determines the excitation of an acoustic wave by two waves of the fourth sound. The possibility of an experimental observation of this process is estimated.     

Generation of Sound by a Two-Dimensional Gas of Indirect Dipolar Excitons

The generation of acoustic waves by a gas of two-dimensional indirect dipolar excitons irradiated by an electromagnetic wave has been studied by the deformation potential method. It has been shown that an acoustic wave propagating into the interior of the isotropic substrate is generally a superposition of longitudinal and transverse waves. At high frequencies of electromagnetic perturbation, the generated acoustic wave degenerates almost completely into a transverse wave. The amplitudes of both waves have been calculated. Their frequency dependences at temperatures above and below the temperature of condensation of the exciton gas have been determined.     

Response of an atom interacting with an arbitrarily polarized electromagnetic field

We develop the theory of interaction of the electromagnetic field and a single atom being in an arbitrary state and having an arbitrary direction of the angular momentum of the atomic electron with respect to the direction of the field polarization vector. It is shown that the atom response current has a tensor structure and depends on both the direction of the angular momentum of the atom, and the polarization vector of the external field. The tensor character of the response is determined by the externally induced anisotropic distribution of the probability density of spatial localization of the atomic electron. It is shown that the induced-anisotropy effects clarify the harmonic generation mechanism at play during the non-resonance interaction of laser radiation with atomic media. The developed theory is applied to the analysis of the problem about the generation of terahertz waves in a two-color laser field. It is shown that the change in the mutual orientation of wave polarization vectors leads to a significant increase in the efficiency of conversion of high-frequency fields to low-frequency ones. It is shown for the first time that the generation of terahertz waves is possible in the preionization regime, when the generation mechanism is related to atomic nonlinearity.     

Reciprocal conversion of sound and electromagnetic waves under conditions of Doppler-shifted cyclotron resonance

Direct reciprocal conversion of sound and electromagnetic waves has been realized in a single crystal of tungsten in the external magnetic field. Experiment was carried out at frequencies 40–160 MHz with geometry H∥q∥[100]. It is shown that oscillatory singularities of the conversion coefficient are caused by Doppler-shifted acoustic cyclotron and Doppleron-phonon resonances.     

Damping rates of waves in a switched magnetoplasma medium:longitudinal propagation

The interaction of a circularly polarized electromagnetic wave with a switched-on magnetoplasma medium is considered. A static magnetic field in the direction of propagation is assumed to be present, resulting in longitudinal propagation. The incident wave splits into three waves whose frequencies are different from that of the incident wave. It is shown that these waves ultimately damp out if the plasma is even slightly lossy. The damping of the waves is interpreted in terms of their attenuation with distance and decay with time as they propagate in the lossy plasma. The attenuation-length and decay-time constants of the waves are obtained, and their dependence on the incident-wave frequency and the gyrofrequency is examined. Optimum parameters for an experiment to detect these waves are suggested     

On the Theory of Brillouin Scattering in Piezoelectric Semiconductors with Acoustic Phonon-Conduction Electron Interaction

The theory of nonresonant Brillouin scattering in anisotropic piezoelectric semiconductors with deformation potential coupling and piezoelectric coupling between excited systems of acoustic phonons and conduction electrons is reviewed. The scattering efficiency is calculated using the appropriate dyadic electromagnetic GreeN′s function. The depletion of the scattered intensity arising from a non phase-matched scattering kinematics and from a spatial exponential decay of the sound amplitude is taken into account. The contributions to the Brillouin scattering from the free-carrier-screened indirect photoelastic effect and from the free-carrier density modulation are expressed in terms of the self-consistent electric field. This field is obtained from a Boltzmann-equation calculation of the effective ac conductivity tensor. The acoustic dispersion of the Brillouin-scattering efficiency is considered, and some possibilities of determining electronic transport properties by means of Brillouin scattering are outlined.     

Dissipative soliton-like plasmon-polariton pulses in extended medium

The propagation of the coupled state of the electron density perturbation in an extended metallic medium and the excitation of a two-level resonant medium are analyzed. The one- and two-photon transitions in the resonant medium are considered. The electron density perturbation is described using the hydrodynamic approximation. The formation of plasmon-polariton pulses is analyzed in the case when losses in the extended medium are compensated for by the pumping of the two-level dielectric medium. Numerical analysis carried out for the two models revealed that the losses in a soliton-like pulse in a thin metallic medium can be compensated for due to the energy transfer from the amplifying medium to electron density waves. It is shown that the dispersion of a medium containing a two-level component may considerably affect the characteristics of the pulses. The possibility of effectively controlling the evolution of soliton-like pulses by varying an external electromagnetic field and the characteristics of the matrix is demonstrated.     

Acoustic nonlinearity parameter tomography for biological tissues via parametric array from a circular piston source--theoretical analysis and computer simulations

The acoustic nonlinearity parameter B/A describes the nonlinear features of a medium and may become a novel parameter for ultrasonic tissue characterization. This paper presents a theoretical analysis for acoustic nonlinear parameter tomography via a parametric array. As two primary waves of different frequencies are radiated simultaneously from a circular piston source, a secondary wave at the difference frequency is generated due to the nonlinear interaction of the primary waves. The axial and radial distributions of sound pressure amplitude for the generated difference frequency wave in the near field are calculated by a superposition of Gaussian beams. The calculated results indicated that the difference frequency component of the parametric array grows linearly with distance from the piston source. It therefore provides a better source to do the acoustic nonlinearity parameter tomography because the fundamental and second harmonic signals both have a near field that goes through many oscillations due to diffraction. By using a finite-amplitude insert substitution method and a filtered convolution algorithm, a computer simulation for B/A tomography from the calculated sound pressure of the difference frequency wave is studied. For biological tissues, the sound attenuation is considered and compensated in the image reconstruction. Nonlinear parameter computed tomography (CT) images for several biological sample models are obtained with quite good quality in this study.