Observation of sound focusing and defocusing due to propagating nonlinear internal waves

Abstract

Fluctuations of the low frequency sound field in the presence of an internal solitary wave packet during the Shallow Water ’06 experiment are analyzed. Acoustic, environmental, and on-board ship radar image data were collected simultaneously before, during, and after a strong internal solitary wave packet passed through the acoustic track. Preliminary analysis of the acoustic wave temporal intensity fluctuations agrees with previously observed phenomena and the existing theory of the horizontal refraction mechanism, which causes focusing and defocusing when the acoustic track is nearly parallel to the front of the internal waves [J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 122(2), pp. 747–760 (2007)].