Finite-bandwidth Kramers-Kronig relations for acoustic group velocity and attenuation derivative applied to...

Kramers-Kronig (KK) analyses of experimental data are complicated by the conflict between the inherently bandlimited data and the requirement of KK integrals for a complete infinite spectrum of input information. For data exhibiting localized extrema, KK relations can provide accurate transforms over finite bandwidths due to the local-weighting properties of the KK kernel. Recently, acoustic KK relations have been derived for the determination of the group velocity (cg) and the derivative of the attenuation coefficient (alpha') (components of the derivative of the acoustic complex wave number). These relations are applicable to bandlimited data exhibiting resonant features without extrapolation or unmeasured parameters. In contrast to twice-subtracted finite-bandwidth KK predictions for phase velocity and attenuation coefficient (components of the undifferentiated wave number), these more recently derived relations for cg and alpha' provide stricter tests of causal consistency because the resulting shapes are invariant with respect to subtraction constants. The integrals in these relations can be formulated so that they only require the phase velocity and attenuation coefficient data without differentiation. Using experimental data from suspensions of encapsulated microbubbles, the finite-bandwidth KK predictions for cg and alpha' are found to provide an accurate mapping of the primary wave number quantities onto their derivatives.