Search arXivSearch

arXiv · 2502.08194

Forward and Inverse Problems in Nonlinear Acoustics

Abstract

The importance of ultrasound is well established in the imaging of human tissue. In order to enhance image quality by exploiting nonlinear effects, recently techniques such as harmonic imaging and nonlinearity parameter tomography have been put forward. As soon as the pressure amplitude exceeds a certain bound, the classical linear wave equation loses its validity and more general nonlinear versions have to be used. Another characteristic property of ultrasound propagation in human tissue is frequency power law attenuation, leading to fractional derivative damping models in time domain. In this contribution we will first of all dwell on modeling nonlinearity on the one hand and fractional damping on the other hand. Moreover we will give an idea on the challenges in the analysis of the resulting PDEs and discuss some parameter asymptotics. Finally, we address a relevant inverse problems in this context, the above mentioned task of nonlinearity parameter imaging, which leads to a coefficient identification problem for a quasilinear wave equation.

Explore related subjects

Keep this discovery

Explore connections, maps & timelines

BibTeXRIS

Barbara Kaltenbacher. 2025-02-12. Forward and Inverse Problems in Nonlinear Acoustics. https://arxiv.org/abs/2502.08194

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

Multilayered fluid-structure interactions: existence of weak solutions for time-periodic and initial-value problems

We establish the existence of weak solutions for a class of fully coupled multilayered fluid-structure interaction systems in a three-dimensional spatial setting. The model consists of an incompressible viscous fluid interacting with a thin elastic shell, which is in turn coupled to a three-dimensional elastic solid, yielding a nonstandard $3D/2D/3D$ coupling configuration. The system is driven by time-periodic boundary forcing through Bernoulli-type pressure conditions. For sufficiently small forcing in $L^2$, we prove the existence of at least one time-periodic weak solution. A central analytical difficulty stems from the strong nonlinear coupling across interfaces of different dimensionality and the absence of classical compactness mechanisms. This challenge is overcome through a carefully designed energy framework combined with and new $L^{2}$ compactness arguments adapted to the multilayered geometry. A key structural assumption is the viscoelasticity of the three-dimensional solid, which yields additional diffusion estimates and ensures energy stability. In the purely elastic case, we establish the global-in-time existence of weak solutions to the corresponding initial-value problem, provided that no degeneration (self-contact) of the fluid domain occurs. These results extend existing theories for two-dimensional and reduced-dimensional configurations to a genuinely three-dimensional multilayered setting, providing new analytical insight into complex coupled PDE systems arising in fluid-structure interaction.

math.AP

A linear test approach to global controllability of third- and fifth-order nonlinear dispersive equations

We investigate third- and fifth-order nonlinear dispersive equations of KdV type on the torus and establishes approximate controllability by a fixed four-dimensional control; rather than relying solely on the saturation machinery, the analysis exploits the finite-dimensional controllability of the inviscid Burgers equation linearized around a carefully constructed return trajectory, with the trajectory itself obtained from an observable family. This ``linear test" strategy, yields more information about the structure of the control than the standard approach. In particular, the constructed control is shown to depend continuously on the initial and target states, a property that is by no means automatic in nonlinear control problems, and to decompose as a bounded linear operator applied to the data plus a fixed remainder, with the operator part interestingly independent of the order of dispersion.

math.AP

Global in-time rough large data solution to complex-valued semilinear damped evolution equations

We study the semilinear Cauchy problem for complex-valued damped evolution equations \begin{align*} \partial_t^2u+(-Δ)^σu+(-Δ)^δ\partial_tu=u^p,\ \ u(0,x)=u_0(x),\ \partial_tu(0,x)=u_1(x), \end{align*} with $δ\in[0,σ]$, $σ\in\mathbb{R}_+$ and $p\in\mathbb{N}_+\backslash\{1\}$, where the initial data belong to the rough space $E^α_s$ endowed with the norm \begin{align*} \|f\|_{E^α_s}=\big\|\langleξ\rangle^s\,2^{α|ξ|}\widehat{f}(ξ)\big\|_{L^2}\ \ \mbox{with}\ \ α<0, \ s\in\mathbb{R}. \end{align*} Concerning $(u_0,u_1)\in E^α_{s+\barκ}\times E^α_s$ when $s\geqslant\frac{n}{2}-\frac{2κ+\barκ-2δ}{p-1}-\barκ$ with $κ=\min\{2δ,σ\}$ and $\barκ=\max\{2δ,σ\}$ whose Fourier transforms are supported in a suitable subset of first octant, we prove a global in-time existence result without requiring the smallness of rough initial data.

math.AP