Leonid Ryzhik

TRANSPORT EQUATIONS FOR ELASTIC AND OTHER WAVES IN RANDOM MEDIA

Abstract We derive and analyze transport equations for the energy density of waves of any kind in a random medium. The equations take account of nonuniformities of the background medium, scattering by random inhomogeneities, polarization effects, coupling of different types of waves, etc. We also show that diffusive behavior occurs on long time and distance scales and we determine the diffusion coefficients. The results are specialized to acoustic, electromagnetic, and elastic waves. The analysis is based on the governing equations of motion and uses the Wigner distribution.

Statistical Stability in Time Reversal

When a signal is emitted from a source, recorded by an array of transducers, time-reversed, and re-emitted into the medium, it will refocus approximately on the source location. We analyze the refocusing resolution in a high frequency remote-sensing regime and show that, because of multiple scattering in an inhomogeneous or random medium, it can improve beyond the diffraction limit. We also show that the back-propagated signal from a spatially localized narrow-band source is self-averaging, or statistically stable, and relate this to the self-averaging properties of functionals of the Wigner distribution in phase space. Time reversal from spatially distributed sources is self-averaging only for broad-band signals. The array of transducers operates in a remote-sensing regime, so we analyze time reversal with the parabolic or paraxial wave equation.

Bulk Burning Rate in¶Passive–Reactive Diffusion

AbstractWe consider a passive scalar that is advected by a prescribed mean zero divergence-free velocity field, diffuses, and reacts according to a KPP-type nonlinear reaction. We introduce a quantity, the bulk burning rate, that makes both mathematical and physical sense in general situations and extends the often ill-defined notion of front speed. We establish rigorous lower bounds for the bulk burning rate that are linear in the amplitude of the advecting velocity for a large class of flows. These “percolating” flows are characterized by the presence of tubes of streamlines connecting distant regions of burned and unburned material and generalize shear flows. The bound contains geometric information on the velocity streamlines and degenerates when these oscillate on scales that are finer than the width of the laminar burning region. We give also examples of very different kind of flows, cellular flows with closed streamlines, and rigorously prove that these can produce only sub-linea enhancement of the bulk burning rate.

SELF-AVERAGING IN TIME REVERSAL FOR THE PARABOLIC WAVE EQUATION

We analyze the self-averaging properties of time-reversed solutions of the paraxial wave equation with random coefficients, which we take to be Markovian in the direction of propagation. This allows us to construct an approximate martingale for the phase space Wigner transform of two wave fields. Using a prioriL2-bounds available in the time-reversal setting, we prove that the Wigner transform in the high frequency limit converges in probability to its deterministic limit, which is the solution of a transport equation.

Enhancement of the traveling front speeds in reaction-diffusion equations with advection

We establish rigorous lower bounds on the speed of traveling fronts and on the bulk burning rate in reaction-diffusion equation with passive advection. The non-linearity is assumed to be of either KPP or ignition type. We consider two main classes of flows. Percolating flows, which are characterized by the presence of long tubes of streamlines mixing hot and cold material, lead to strong speed-up of burning which is linear in the amplitude of the flow, U. On the other hand the cellular flows, which have closed streamlines, are shown to produce weaker increase in reaction. For such flows we get a lower bound which grows as U1/5 for a large amplitude of the flow.

Time Reversal and Refocusing in Random Media

In time reversal acoustics experiments, a signal is emitted from a localized source, recorded at an array of receivers, time reversed, and finally reemitted into the medium. A celebrated feature of time reversal experiments is that the refocusing of the reemitted signals at the location of the initial source is improved when the medium is heterogeneous. Contrary to intuition, multiple scattering enhances the spatial resolution of the refocused signal and allows one to beat the diffraction limit obtained in homogeneous media. This paper presents a quantitative explanation of time reversal and other more general refocusing phenomena for general classical waves in heterogeneous media. The theory is based on the asymptotic analysis of the Wigner transform of wave fields in the high frequency limit. Numerical experiments complement the theory.

Radiative transport limit for the random Schrödinger equation

We give a detailed mathematical analysis of the radiative transport limit for the average phase space density of solutions of the Schrodinger equation with time-dependent random potential. Our derivation is based on the construction of an approximate martingale for the random Wigner distribution.

TRANSPORT THEORY FOR ACOUSTIC WAVES WITH REFLECTION AND TRANSMISSION AT INTERFACES

Abstract Transport theoretic boundary conditions are derived for acoustic wave reflection and transmission at a rough interface with small random fluctuations. The Wigner distribution is used to go from waves to energy transport in the high frequency limit, and the Born expansion is used to calculate the effect of the random rough surface. The smoothing method is also used to remove the grazing angle singularity due to the Born approximation. The results are presented in a form that is convenient both for theoretical analysis and for numerical computations.

Flame enhancement and quenching in fluid flows

We perform direct numerical simulations of an advected scalar field which diffuses and reacts according to a nonlinear reaction law. The objective is to study how the bulk burning rate of the reaction is affected by an imposed flow. In particular, we are interested in comparing the numerical results with recently predicted analytical upper and lower bounds. We focus on the reaction enhancement and quenching phenomena for two classes of imposed model flows with different geometries: periodic shear flow and cellular flow. We are primarily interested in the fast advection regime. We find that the bulk burning rate v in a shear flow satisfies ν ∼ aU + b where U is the typical flow velocity and a is a constant depending on the relationship between the oscillation length scale of the flow and laminar front thickness. For cellular flow, we obtain ν ∼ U 1/4. We also study the flame extinction (quenching) for an ignition-type reaction law and compactly supported initial data for the scalar field. We find that in a shear flow the flame of size W can be typically quenched by a flow with amplitude U ∼ αW. The constant α depends on the geometry of the flow and tends to infinity if the flow profile has a plateau larger than a critical size. In a cellular flow, we find that the advection strength required for quenching is U ∼ W 4 if the cell size is smaller than a critical value.

Radiative Transport in a Periodic Structure

We derive radiative transport equations for solutions of a Schrödinger equation in a periodic structure with small random inhomogeneities. We use systematically the Wigner transform and the Bloch wave expansion. The streaming part of the radiative transport equations is determined entirely by the Bloch spectrum, and the scattering part by the random fluctuations.