A comprehensive bifurcation method to analyze the super-harmonic and ultra-harmonic behavior of the acoustically excited bubble oscillator

Abstract: Acoustically excited bubbles are involved in a wide range of phenomena and applications ranging from oceanography to sonoluminescence; they have applications in chemistry, medical imaging, and therapeutic ultrasound. The complexity of bubble dynamics and the limited understanding of their behavior restricts the exploration of their full potential. The bubble oscillator is a highly nonlinear system, which makes it difficult to generate a comprehensive understanding of its oscillatory behavior. One method used to investigate such complex dynamical systems is the bifurcation analysis. Numerous investigations have employed the method of bifurcation diagrams to study the effect of different control parameters on the bubble behavior. These studies, however, focused mainly on investigating the subharmonic (SH) and chaotic oscillations of the bubbles. Super-harmonic (SuH) and ultra-harmonic (UH) bubble oscillations remain under-investigated. One reason is that the conventional method used for generating bifurcation diagrams cannot reliably identify features that are responsible for the identification of SuH and UH oscillations. Additionally, the conventional method cannot distinguish between the UHs and SHs. We introduce a simple procedure for the generation of bifurcation diagrams to address this shortcoming. This method selects the maxima of the bubble oscillatory response and plots them alongside the traditional bifurcation points for the corresponding control parameter. Through applying this method, the oscillatory behavior of the bubble oscillator is analyzed, and stable SuH and UH bubble oscillations are investigated. Based on this new analysis, the conditions for the generation and amplification of UH and SuH regimes are discussed.