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Updated: May 31, 2026

A Stable Phantom Material for Optical and Acoustic Imaging
Published on: June 16, 2023
Closed form solutions for the acoustical impulse response over a masslike or an absorbing plane
1Beuth Hochschule für Technik Berlin - University of Applied Sciences, Department of Mathematics, Physics, and Chemistry, Luxemburger Strasse 10, 13353 Berlin, Germany. ochmann@beuth-hochschule.de
Abstract:
The transient sound field caused by a Dirac delta impulse function above an infinite locally reacting plane can be calculated by applying the inverse Fourier transform of the corresponding half-space Green's function in frequency domain. As a starting point, the representation given by Ochmann [J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 116(6), 3304-3311 (2004)] is used, which consists of discrete and continuous superposition of point sources. For a locally reacting plane with masslike character and also with pure absorbing behavior, it is possible to express the resulting impulse response in closed form. Such a result is surprising, because corresponding formulations in the frequency domain are not available yet. Hence, the first main result is the closed form solution Eq. (22) for an impulse response over an infinite plane with a pure imaginary impedance. The second main result is the closed form solution Eq. (53) for an impulse response over an infinite plane with a pure real impedance. As a particular application of both main results, a convolution technique is used for deriving formulas for point sources with a general time dependency. For special signals like an exponentially decaying time signal or a triangular shaped impulse, the resulting sound field can be presented in terms of elementary functions.
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