Transmission of acoustic-gravity waves through gas–liquid interfaces

Abstract

AbstractIt was demonstrated recently that gas–liquid interfaces, which are usually almost perfect reflectors of acoustic waves, become anomalously transparent, and the power flux in the wave transmitted into the gas increases dramatically, when a compact sound source in the liquid approaches the interface within a fraction of the wavelength (Godin, Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 97, 2006b, 164301). Powerful underwater explosions and certain natural sources, such as underwater landslides, generate very low-frequency waves in water and air, for which fluid buoyancy and compressibility simultaneously serve as restoring forces. In this paper, analysis of sound transmission through gas–liquid interfaces is extended to acoustic-gravity waves (AGWs) and applied to the air–water interface. It is found that, as for sound, the interface becomes anomalously transparent for sufficiently shallow compact sources of AGWs. Depending on the source type, the increase of a wave power flux into gas due to diffraction effects can reach several orders of magnitude. The physical mechanisms responsible for the anomalous transparency are discussed. Excitation of an interface wave by a point source in the liquid is shown to be an important channel of AGW transmission into the gas, which has no counterpart in the case of sound.