Archives of Acoustics

Abstract

An original model based on first principles is constructed for the temporal correlation of acoustic waves propagating in random scattering media. The model describes the dynamics of wave fields in a previously unexplored, moderately strong (mesoscopic) scattering regime, intermediate between those of weak scattering, on the one hand, and diffusing waves, on the other. It is shown that by considering the wave vector as a free parameter that can vary at will, one can provide an additional dimension to the data, resulting in a tomographic-type reconstruction of the full space-time dynamics of a complex structure, instead of a plain spectroscopic technique. In Fourier space, the problem is reduced to a spherical mean transform defined for a family of spheres containing the origin, and therefore is easily invertible. The results may be useful in probing the statistical structure of various random media with both spatial and temporal resolution.