Waveguide propagation of sound beams in a nonlinear medium

A possibility of a waveguide propagation of sound beams in the case of compensation of the diffraction divergence by the nonlinear refraction is demonstrated theoretically. A stationary (with respect to the longitudinal coordinate) solution is obtained to the nonlinear equation for a sound beam (the Khokhlov—Zabolotskaya equation); the solution describes the characteristic bow-shaped profile of the beam and the self-localized (with respect to the transverse coordinate) distribution of the peak values of this profile. The physical and mathematical features of this phenomenon belonging to nonlinear acoustics are discussed and compared with those of the well-known analog from nonlinear optics. A scheme of an experimental realization of the waveguide propagation of acoustic beams is proposed.