Acoustics of Layered Media II : Point Sources and Bounded Beams

This is the sequel to our book Acoustics of Layered Media I: Plane and Quasi­ Plane Waves (Springer Ser. Wave Phenom. , Vol. 5). Taken together, these two monographs present a systematic exposition of the theory of sound propagation in inhomogeneous media, which starts from first principles and includes recent results. More advanced topics are considered in this second volume. Although the theory of wave beams and fields of localized sources is more sophisticated than the theory of quasi-plane waves, it embraces a much wider range of interesting problems that are also important for applications. We exploit the results of Acoustics of Layered Media I, as long as it is expedient to consider sound fields as a superposition of plane or quasi-plane waves. However, the knowledgeable reader will view this book as self-contained. Similar topics have been treated in the book by L. M. Brekhovskikh, Waves in Layered Media, the English version of the second edition of which was published by Academic Press in 1980. Since Waves in Layered Media became very popular, we have tried here to retain its spirit. However, the majority of this text is devoted to new material which reflects the significant progress of the theory during recent years. In particular, acoustic fields in a moving fluid are considered and much attention is paid to sound propagation in range dependent environments, which is currently on the leading edge of research activities.