On scattering from a bubble located near a flat air-water interface: laboratory measurements and modeling.

Scattering by a single bubble near a flat air-water interface is investigated theoretically and experimentally. A ray-acoustic interpretation is used to describe the four scattering paths, from source to bubble to receiver, that determine the response of the bubble. Multiple scattering effects are accounted for using a closed-form solution derived from the multiple scattering series. Experiments are performed by placing a bubble with radius a approximately 425 microm on a fine nylon thread, which is approximately 100 microm in diameter and practically transparent to sound, at a distance d from the interface. The primary variable is d and it ranges from 1 a to 100 a. The bubble is excited by tone bursts with a center frequency of 120 kHz, with the transducers arranged in both bistatic and monostatic configurations. Theory and experiment are in good agreement, verifying the dominant effect of the four paths in the response of the bubble, with multiple scattering playing a role for kd < 1, where k is the wave number of the medium. In the long-range limit our simulations agree with those of Ye and Feuillade [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 102, 798-805 (1997)] including the shifting of the bubble's resonant frequency. The dependence of scattering on transducer arrangement, range to bubble, grazing angle, and phase relation among the four paths, vis-à-vis monostatic and bistatic scattering, is discussed.

Ocean dynamics and acoustic fluctuations in the fram strait marginal ice zone.

Acoustic waves transmitted over a 100-kilometer path in the Fram Strait marginal ice zone undergo Doppler shifts and fluctuations around these shifts, the former due to quasi-steady motion of both acoustic source and receiver and the latter to unsteady motions of the water column and ice cover. Internal waves and differential Doppler shift usually account for such fluctuations in the deep temperate ocean but only partially explain the results obtained in the marginal ice zone. There the fluctuations are more energetic and may be caused alternatively or additionally by comparably energetic fluctuations in ice-edge eddies or other mesoscale motions.