Acoustic wave front reversal in a three-phase media

Abstract: Acoustic wave front conjugation is studied in a sandy marine sediment that contains air bubbles in its fluid fraction. The considered phase conjugation is a four-wave nonlinear parametric sound interaction process caused by nonlinear bubble oscillations which are known to be dominant in acoustic nonlinear interactions in three-phase marine sediments. Two various mechanisms of phase conjugation are studied. One of them is based on the stimulated Raman-type sound scattering on resonance bubble oscillations. The second one is associated with sound interactions with bubble oscillations which frequencies are far from resonance bubble frequencies. Nonlinear equations to solve the wave-front conjugation problem are derived, expressions for acoustic wave amplitudes with a reversed wave front are obtained and compared for various frequencies of the excited bubble oscillations.