The horizontal structure of the sound field in the ocean

Abstract

Results of calculating the horizontal structure of acoustic field in the ocean with a canonical sound velocity profile are presented. The calculation is performed in the framework of geometrical acoustics by combining the fields of water-path rays at every point with allowance for their phases and amplitudes. The field distribution at a fixed depth is found to be not very informative: within a cycle length, it contains 1–3 maxima, which are mainly caused by the caustics present at the given depth. The width of caustics is ∼0.1–1 km. Between the caustics, as well as in their absence, the field amplitude is much smaller than that in the regions of caustics and varies depending on the phases and amplitudes of rays arriving at a given point. The comparison of the calculated horizontal field structure with that obtained from full-scale measurements for the regions between the caustics is difficult because of the possible fluctuations of sound propagation conditions.