Including dispersion and attenuation directly in the time domain for wave propagation in isotropic media

When sound propagates in a lossy fluid, causality dictates that in most cases the presence of attenuation is accompanied by dispersion. The ability to incorporate attenuation and its causal companion, dispersion, directly in the time domain has received little attention. Szabo [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 96, 491-500 (1994)] showed that attenuation and dispersion in a linear medium can be accounted for in the linear wave equation by the inclusion of a causal convolutional propagation operator that includes both phenomena. Szabo's work was restricted to media with a power-law attenuation. Waters et al. [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 108, 2114-2119 (2000)] showed that Szabo's approach could be used in a broader class of media. Direct application of Szabo's formalism is still lacking. To evaluate the concept of the causal convolutional propagation operator as introduced by Szabo, the operator is applied to pulse propagation in an isotropic lossy medium directly in the time domain. The generalized linear wave equation containing the operator is solved via a finite-difference-time-domain scheme. Two functional forms for the attenuation often encountered in acoustics are examined. It is shown that the presence of the operator correctly incorporates both, attenuation and dispersion.