Echo Delay Research Articles

Measuring Black Hole Light Echoes with Very Long Baseline Interferometry

Light passing near a black hole can follow multiple paths from an emission source to an observer due to strong gravitational lensing. Photons following different paths take different amounts of time to reach the observer, which produces an echo signature in the image. The characteristic echo delay is determined primarily by the mass of the black hole, but it is also influenced by the black hole spin and inclination to the observer. In the Kerr geometry, echo images are demagnified, rotated, and sheared copies of the direct image and lie within a restricted region of the image. Echo images have exponentially suppressed flux, and temporal correlations within the flow make it challenging to directly detect light echoes from the total light curve. In this Letter, we propose a novel method to search for light echoes by correlating the total light curve with the interferometric signal at high spatial frequencies, which is a proxy for indirect emission. We explore the viability of our method using numerical general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations of a near-face-on accretion system scaled to M87-like parameters. We demonstrate that our method can be used to directly infer the echo delay period in simulated data. An echo detection would be clear evidence that we have captured photons that have circled the black hole, and a high-fidelity echo measurement would provide an independent measure of fundamental black hole parameters. Our results suggest that detecting echoes may be achievable through interferometric observations with a modest space-based very long baseline interferometry mission.

Echoes of massless scalar field induced from hairy Schwarzschild black hole

A hairy Schwarzschild black hole describes the deformation of Schwarzschild black hole with an exponent correction due to the introducing of additional sources. Inspired by the novel feature that the hairy Schwarzschild black hole can have double photon spheres for certain parameters space, in this paper we study the echo signals of a massless scalar field from this hairy Schwarzschild black hole by calculating its time evolution. We mainly analyze how the hairy parameters and scalar field's angular momentum affect the echo waveform of the perturbing scalar field. Additionally, we roughly evaluate the time delay of echoes. We find that the hairy parameters have significant influences on the echo signals.

The Influence of Deformation in Compact Objects on Redshift and Radar Echo Delay

The Influence of Deformation in Compact Objects on Redshift and Radar Echo Delay

Doppler detection triggers instantaneous escape behavior in scanning bats

Animals must instantaneously escape from predators for survival, which requires quick detection of approaching threats. Although the neural mechanisms underlying the perception of looming objects have been extensively studied in the visual system, little is known about their auditory counterparts. Echolocating bats use their auditory senses to perceive not only the soundscape, but also the physical environment through active sensing. Although object movement induces both echo delay changes and Doppler shifts, the actual information required to perceive movement has been unclear. Herein, we addressed this question by playing back phantom echoes mimicking an approaching target to horseshoe bats and found that they relied only on Doppler shifts. This suggests that the bats do not perceive object motion in the spatiotemporal dimension (i.e., positional variation), as in vision, but rather take advantage of acoustic sensing by directly detecting velocity, thereby enabling them to respond instantaneously to approaching threats.

Effects of echo phase on bottlenose dolphin jittered-echo detection.

The ability of bottlenose dolphins to detect changes in echo phase was investigated using a jittered-echo paradigm. The dolphins' task was to produce a conditioned vocalization when phantom echoes with fixed echo delay and phase changed to those with delay and/or phase alternated ("jittered") on successive presentations. Conditions included: jittered delay plus constant phase shifts, ±45° and 0°-180° jittered phase shifts, alternating delay and phase shifts, and random echo-to-echo phase shifts. Results showed clear sensitivity to echo fine structure, revealed as discrimination performance reductions when jittering echo fine structures were similar, but envelopes were different, high performance with identical envelopes but different fine structure, and combinations of echo delay and phase jitter where their effects cancelled. Disruption of consistent echo fine structure via random phase shifts dramatically increased jitter detection thresholds. Sensitivity to echo fine structure in the present study was similar to the cross correlation function between jittering echoes and is consistent with the performance of a hypothetical coherent receiver; however, a coherent receiver is not necessary to obtain the present results, only that the auditory system is sensitive to echo fine structure.

Quality Control Metrics for Cepstral Analysis with Homomorphic Deconvolution

ABSTRACT In this study we describe an improved cepstral method that can be used for estimating the depth (<2 km) of very shallow earthquakes and explosions. Knowing the depth is important, especially for explosions, for which the best depth indicator, the seismic depth phase (pP) is often not easily discernible from the first arrival (P). Unlike the previous cepstral studies, our method utilizes the power and complex complex cepstrum, and homomorphic deconvolution (HD). The use of quality control metrics increases analyst confidence that a plausible signal–echo delay pair was identified. The metrics quantify liftering adequacy and success of the HD. The most important criteria for successful HD shows good signal–echo delay lag recovery, and a plausible deconvolved signal and echo with similar shape to the initial waveform. The successful application of the method to a few near-ideal cases of high signal-to-noise ratio events warrants testing the proposed metrics on a larger number of well-located events.

Low sampling rate digital dechirp for Inverse Synthetic Aperture Ladar imaging processing

The application of digital dechirp technology to Inverse Synthetic Aperture Ladar (ISAL) can greatly reduce the sampling rate burden on analog-to-digital converters. We address the disadvantage of signal sampling and imaging processing in linear frequency-modulated continuous waveform (LFMCW) ISAL systems and suggest a delay estimation method based on a reference channel to reduce the impact of echo delay error. Our method uses the strongest point in the scene as the scene center to estimate the delay and target distance via dechirped pulse compression. The reference channel data are also used to align the dechirped pulse signal and, in turn, reduce clock errors and ensure azimuth signal quality. To our knowledge, our experiment represents the first successful application of digital dechirp to ISAL systems. Experimental results confirm the applicability of our digital dechirp method to ISAL system in order to reduce sampling requirements.

Studying dolphin biosonar with the jittered-echo paradigm

In his 1979 paper “Perception of echo phase information in bat sonar” [Science 204, 1336–1338], Jim Simmons introduced the “jittered-echo” paradigm. In this method, bats discriminated between electronic echoes with fixed delay (i.e., simulating fixed range) and those with delays that alternated (“jittered”) on successive echoes. The jittered-echo paradigm was developed to minimize the interfering effects of head movement, under the assumption that head movement between successive pulse emissions is negligible. Echo delay thresholds obtained with the jitter technique are small, with multiple studies reporting sub-microsecond echo delay thresholds in the big brown bat. The jitter method has also been controversial, because of the extremely low echo delay resolution (10 ns) and sensitivity to echo phase (fine structure) reported by Simmons. Recently, the jitter delay paradigm has been adapted for underwater use with dolphins. Results with dolphins show qualitative similarities to those from bats: echo delay thresholds below 1 μs and sensitivity to echo fine structure. This talk will briefly review Simmons’ and other’s biosonar jitter experiments with bats, then present in detail experiments with bottlenose dolphins featuring jittered echo delay and phase.

Target ranging by echolocation in bats: Performance and mechanisms

James Simmons’s early research on sonar ranging in echolocating bats generated two groundbreaking discoveries: (1) Bats compute object distance from the time delay between sonar calls and echoes, and they discriminate echo-delay differences in the microsecond range [Simmons, https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1121/1.1913559 (1973)] and (2) A population of auditory neurons show facilitated and echo delay-tuned responses, a posited neural substrate of sonar ranging [Feng et al., https://10.1126/science.705350 (1978)]. These findings spawned decades of biosonar research around the world, and this talk will summarize three new findings on the mechanisms of sonar ranging in the big brown bat, Eptesicus fuscus. (1) Echo-delay tuned neurons in the midbrain of the free-flying bat show 3D spatial tuning to echoes from physical objects, and sonar-guided attention evokes sharper delay-dependent response areas and shifts to shorter echo delays. (2) Local field potential recordings from auditory midbrain neurons in the passively listening bat encode the time interval between call-echo pairs in the microsecond range, with accuracy dependent on signal duration and bandwidth. (3) A population of hippocampal CA1 neurons encodes the distance of sonar objects in bats as they track moving targets, and responses of hippocampal neurons depend on the production of sonar calls that yield echo returns.

The quest for the biosonar image of the world

The large differences in the wavelength of visible light and the ultrasonic pulses of bat biosonar raise the question whether the sensory world of bats is the same as that of humans and other visual animals, completely different, or something in-between. Pioneering research on this question has focused on the range dimension of biosonar perception exploiting the straightforward relationship between echo delay and target range. Furthermore, since bat ears are typically no more than a single order of magnitude longer than the respective ultrasonic wavelengths, the beam patterns of the animals are fairly wide, which can be expected to result in a much better resolution for range than along the cross-range dimension. Bats that use their biosonar to navigate in densely vegetated environments receive echoes containing contributions from many unresolved scatterers, i.e., “clutter echoes.” Extracting useful information from clutter has been studied using real-world data collected with biomimetic sonar systems and analyzed with deep-learning methods. The results demonstrate that useful information can be extracted from clutter echoes without the formation of an image, i.e., without a systematic spatial representation of resolved objects. Hence, many interesting aspects of how bats experience their sensory worlds may still be left to be discovered.

Cognitive perception of biosonar echo delay, phase, and spectrum

FM echolocating big brown bats combine the acoustic delay, phase, and spectrum of echoes into a unitary cognitive attribute of perceived delay. In this talk, we will present psychophysical, neurophysiological, and modeling data showing how this might be accomplished. Delay accuracy measured psychophysically approximates coherent matched-filter accuracy. Psychophysical curves of echo-delay resemble pulse-echo crosscorrelation functions, with phase manifested directly within 20 μs. Computational modeling shows that low-pass time-frequency bandpass filtering at 10 kHz enables the contribution from phase. Neural responses from the auditory midbrain are phase-sensitive for tone-burst offsets up to15 kHz. Echo spectrum (spectral nulls and ripples) is transformed into psychophysical percepts of delay. The external-ear spectral null creates an elevation-dependent peak at about 35 μs for vertical target tracking. Off-axis clutter masking is suppressed by a Gestalt-like normalization process that operates within delay percepts. The organization of perceived delay and the appearance of phase shifts is facilitated by delay processing that begins at the low-frequency tail end of FM sweeps and the linking of 1st and 2nd harmonic frequencies. Surprisingly, this result requires the entire echo to be received before any delay is determined. The implications of this result will be discussed. [Work supported by ONR.]

Neural responses of the auditory midbrain to naturalistic echolocation sequences in Hipposideros armiger

The functional properties of the auditory midbrain, inferior colliculus (IC), plays a critical role in James Simmons’s SCAT model of target ranging by echolocation. This SCAT model is based solely on the big brown bat producing frequency-modulated (FM) sonar calls. By contrast, there has been very limited knowledge on how the auditory midbrain may encode target ranging information in bats that produce constant-frequency (CF) sonar calls. Here, we conducted single-unit recordings from the auditory midbrain of passively listening Hipposideros armiger using naturalistic echolocation sequences. We created echolocation sequences from recordings taken from individual bats swung on a moving pendulum that evokes Doppler shift compensation (DSC) of their sonar vocalizations. Our preliminary data revealed a population of IC neurons selectively responded to DSC information in the sequences. To our surprise, we did not find neurons that encode echo delays. Considering published data on FM bats, these results suggest that the functional role of auditory midbrain for echolocation may be distinct between FM bats and CF-FM bats.

A Torpedo Target Recognition Method Based on the Correlation between Echo Broadening and Apparent Angle

As acoustic decoys can simulate the scale of the target through orderly control of the echo delay, simulated acoustic decoys have scale characteristics similar to those of the scaled target. Consequently, simulated acoustic decoys make it difficult for active acoustic homing torpedoes to recognize acoustic decoys through traditional echo broadening or apparent angle. This will lead to a decrease in the anti-interference capability of torpedoes. In combat, acoustic decoys deceive torpedoes and deviate from the tracking course so that torpedoes cannot find the real target, or waste the range, eventually failing to strike the target and failing in combat. The accurate underwater target scale recognition of active acoustic homing torpedoes is considered a difficult technique. In this paper, we propose a target recognition method based on the correlation between target echo broadening and apparent angle. This specific simulation example shows that conventional target scale recognition methods cannot distinguish between suspended and homing acoustic decoys with virtual scale. By contrast, the target scale recognition method proposed in this paper can accurately distinguish between suspended and homing acoustic decoys with virtual scale at close range, under non-positive transverse port angle conditions. This method improves the anti-interference capability of torpedoes. In addition, it can improve the accuracy of active sonar recognition scale targets of ships, which guide active sonar target recognition.

Oscillatory discharges in the auditory midbrain of the big brown bat contribute to coding of echo delay.

Subsequent to his breakthrough discovery of delay-tuned neurons in the bat's auditory midbrain and cortex, Albert Feng proposed that neural computations for echo delay involve intrinsic oscillatory discharges generated in the inferior colliculus (IC). To explore further the presence of these neural oscillations, we recorded multiple unit activity with a novel annular low impedance electrode from the IC of anesthetized big brown bats and Seba's short-tailed fruit bats. In both species, responses to tones, noise bursts, and FM sweeps contain long latency components, extending up to 60ms post-stimulus onset, organized in periodic, oscillatory-like patterns at frequencies of 360-740Hz. Latencies of this oscillatory activity resemble the wide distributions of single neuron response latencies in the IC. In big brown bats, oscillations lasting up to 30ms after pulse onset emerge in response to single FM pulse-echo pairs, at particular pulse-echo delays. Oscillatory responses to pulses and evoked responses to echoes overlap extensively at short echo delays (5-7ms), creating interference-like patterns. At longer echo delays, responses are separately evident to both pulses and echoes, with less overlap. These results extend Feng's reports of IC oscillations, and point to different processing mechanisms underlying perception of short vs long echo delays.

Acoustic-Sensing-Based Location Semantics Identification Using Smartphones

The location awareness becomes increasingly important as mobile devices such as smartphones are used extensively in our daily lives. Existing indoor localization solutions either require certain preinstalled infrastructures or add-on devices, which could not provide a location semantics identification service for smartphones to infer both type and size of a geographic location. In this work, we propose a new active sensing system that enables smartphones to identify its location semantics without requiring any additional infrastructure. The main idea behind our system is to utilize the acoustic signatures, which are derived from the smartphone by emitting a predesigned beep signal and identifying two echo sets which correspond to sidewalls and other static objects respectively, as the proof to achieve both spatial size estimation and room-type prediction simultaneously for indoor location semantics identification. Given the microphone samplings, our system designs a correlation-based scheme to identify beginning points of echoes corresponding to static reflectors accurately from the received signal. To achieve an accurate location semantics identification, we develop a new echo selection scheme to discriminate echoes created by sidewalls and other static reflectors by utilizing the geometrical relationships between the delays of echoes. To deal with the varying number of identified echoes, our location semantics prediction scheme then derives histograms from echo sets and adopt a deep-learning-based classifier to determine the current location semantics. Our experimental results show that our proposed system is accurate and robust for location semantics identification under various real-world scenarios.

Multi Spherical Wave Imaging Method Based on Ultrasonic Array.

The imaging range of traditional plane wave imaging is usually limited by the directivity of the plane wave. In this paper, a multi spherical wave imaging method based on an ultrasonic array is proposed, which radiates both compression and shear waves in a solid medium to form the multi spherical wave. Firstly, excitation characteristics of the multi spherical wave are analyzed theoretically and the calculation method of echo delay of multi spherical wave imaging is derived. Multi spherical wave imaging is compared with conventional ultrasonic plane wave imaging by designing experiments. Compared with ultrasonic plane wave imaging, multi spherical wave imaging is not limited to the size of the transducer and can greatly improve the detection range. In addition, compared with the multi plane wave imaging method, the multi spherical wave imaging algorithm is relatively simple, fast, and has high application value.

Horseshoe bats use not changes in echo delay but Doppler shift to perceive approaching objects

Echolocating bats use echo delay for target ranging and Doppler shift information for relative velocity recognition. However, how they perceive moving objects remains unclear. To investigate this question, we played back echolocation pulses in real-time as virtual echoes to Japanese horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus ferrumequinum nippon) on a perch in a flight room. Since echoes coming back from an approaching object are theoretically characterized by both changes in echo delay and the presence of Doppler shift, we reproduced an artificial approaching object by encoding these two acoustic parameters in the virtual echoes. As a result, only Doppler shift evoked bats flight reaction, showing that they use only Doppler shift and not change in echo delay to perceive approaching objects. Also, we played back only constant frequency (CF) component and confirmed that they use the CF component to detect Doppler shift. Furthermore, as a response to the Doppler shift in the perceived echo, bats increased the bandwidth of the terminal component of their pulse. Surprisingly, this response occurred in the very first pulse after Doppler shift, which indicates bats can adapt their echolocation pulse characteristics to changing situations within a pulse. [This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Nos. 18H03786 and 16H06542.]

Topographical distribution of spectrotemporal receptive field properties in the bat primary auditory cortex

Spectrotemporal modulations are a prominent feature of natural sounds including animal vocalizations and human speech. Echolocating bats must process spectrotemporal cues such as echo delays and spectrum properties to navigate their environment; however, the neuronal networks in the primary auditory cortex (A1) that process features of natural sounds remain incompletely understood. Here, we investigated the topographical distribution of tuning properties throughout A1 of Mexican free-tailed bats. While the majority of the bats’ A1 neurons are tuned to downward FM sweeps, the entire cortex is required to capture and categorize patterns of spectral details embedded within each biosonar echo. We captured the neural responses of the A1 to complex acoustic stimuli using linear, 16-channel translaminar microelectrode arrays. We analyzed 145 spectrotemporal receptive fields (STRFs) across A1, as well as the spectral and temporal modulation transfer functions (sMTF and tMTF, respectively) to determine neural tuning preferences in the spectral and temporal dimensions. We found evidence of neuronal sub-categories that were classified as having simple or complex (multi-peaked) STRFs. For simple STRFs, sMTFs and tMTFs were evaluated as a function of best frequency, and spatial location and revealed tonotopic trends similar to those reported for non-specialized animals.

Amplitude discrimination is predictably affected by echo frequency filtering in wideband echolocating bats.

Big brown bats echolocate using wideband frequency-modulated (FM) ultrasonic pulses, perceiving target range from echo delay and target size from echo amplitude. Echolocation pulses contain two prominent down-sweeping harmonics (FM1, ∼55-22 kHz; FM2, ∼100-55 kHz), which are affected differently by propagation to the target and back to the bat. Previous work demonstrates that big brown bats utilize the low frequencies in FM1 for target ranging, while FM2 only contributes if FM1 is also present. The present experiments test the hypothesis that the bat's ability to discriminate echo amplitude is also affected by selectively attenuating FM1 or FM2 in target or nontarget echoes. Bats were trained to perform an amplitude discrimination task with virtual echo targets located 83 cm away. Echo delay was fixed and echo amplitude was varied, while either FM1 or FM2 was attenuated by highpass or lowpass filtering. Bats' performance decreased when lower frequencies were attenuated in target echoes and when higher frequencies were attenuated in nontarget echoes. Performance was reversed in the opposite filtering conditions. The bat's ability to distinguish between virtual targets varying in amplitude at the same simulated range indicates a high level of focused attention for perceptual isolation of target from non-target echoes.

Imaging Ultrafast Dynamical Diffraction Wave Fronts in Strained Si with Coherent X Rays.

Dynamical diffraction effects in thin single crystals produce highly monochromatic parallel x-ray beams with a mutual separation of a few microns and a time delay of a few femtoseconds-the so-called echoes. This ultrafast diffraction effect is used at X-Ray Free Electron Lasers in self-seeding schemes to improve beam monochromaticity. Here, we present a coherent x-ray imaging measurement of echoes from Si crystals and demonstrate that a small surface strain can be used to tune their temporal delay. These results represent a first step toward the ambitious goal of strain tailoring new x-ray optics and, conversely, open up the possibility of using ultrafast dynamical diffraction effects to study strain in materials.