Physics-based characterization of soft marine sediments using vector sensors

In a 2007 experiment conducted in the northern North Sea, observations of a low-frequency seismo-acoustic wave field with a linear horizontal array of vector sensors located on the seafloor revealed a strong, narrow peak around 38 Hz in the power spectra and a presence of multi-mode horizontally and vertically polarized interface waves with phase speeds between 45 and 350 m/s. Dispersion curves of the interface waves exhibit piece-wise linear dependences between the logarithm of phase speed and logarithm of frequency with distinct slopes at large and small phase speeds, which suggests a seabed with a power-law shear speed dependence in two distinct sediment layers. The power spectrum peak is interpreted as a manifestation of a seismo-acoustic resonance. A simple geoacoustic model with a few free parameters is derived that quantitatively reproduces the key features of the observations. This article's approach to the inverse problem is guided by a theoretical analysis of interface wave dispersion and resonance reflection of compressional waves in soft marine sediments containing two or more layers of different composition. Combining data from various channels of the vector sensors is critical for separating waves of different polarizations and helps to identify various arrivals, check consistency of inversions, and evaluate sediment density

Interferometry of infragravity waves off New Zealand

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2014. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans 119 (2014): 1103-1122, doi:10.1002/2013JC009395.Wave interferometry is a remote sensing technique, which is increasingly employed in helioseismology, seismology, and acoustics to retrieve parameters of the propagation medium from two-point cross-correlation functions of random wavefields. Here we apply interferometry to yearlong records of seafloor pressure at 28 locations off New Zealand's South Island to investigate propagation and directivity properties of infragravity waves away from shore. A compressed cross-correlation function technique is proposed to make the interferometry of dispersive waves more robust, decrease the necessary noise averaging time, and simplify retrieval of quantitative information from noise cross correlations. The emergence of deterministic wave arrivals from cross correlations of random wavefields is observed up to the maximum range of 692 km between the pressure sensors in the array. Free, linear waves with a strongly anisotropic distribution of power flux density are found to be dominant in the infragravity wavefield. Lowest-frequency components of the infragravity wavefield are largely isotropic. The anisotropy has its maximum in the middle of the spectral band and decreases at the high-frequency end of the spectrum. Highest anisotropy peaks correspond to waves coming from portions of the New Zealand's shoreline. Significant contributions are also observed from waves propagating along the coastline and probably coming from powerful sources in the northeast Pacific. Infragravity wave directivity is markedly different to the east and to the west of the South Island. The northwest coast of the South Island is found to be a net source of the infragravity wave energy.The collection of DPG data was supported by the National Science Foundation Continental Dynamics program under grants EAR-0409564, EAR-0409609, and EAR-0409835. This work was supported, in part, by the University of Colorado Seed Grant ‘‘Study of Ocean Infragravity Waves with a Large Array of Seafloor Seismometers,’’ the National Science Foundation award OCE 1129524, and the Office of Naval Research award N00014-13-1–0348.2014-08-1

Power spectra of infragravity waves in a deep ocean

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2013. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Geophysical Research Letters 40 (2013): 2159–2165, doi:10.1002/grl.50418.Infragravity waves (IGWs) play an important role in coupling wave processes in the ocean, ice shelves, atmosphere, and the solid Earth. Due to the paucity of experimental data, little quantitative information is available about power spectra of IGWs away from the shore. Here we use continuous, yearlong records of pressure at 28 locations on the seafloor off New Zealand's South Island to investigate spectral and spatial distribution of IGW energy. Dimensional analysis of diffuse IGW fields reveals universal properties of the power spectra observed at different water depths and leads to a simple, predictive model of the IGW spectra. While sources of IGWs off New Zealand are found to have a flat power spectrum, the IGW energy density has a pronounced dependence on frequency and local water depth as a result of the interaction of the waves with varying bathymetry.The collection of DPG data was supported by the National Science Foundation Continental Dynamics program under grants EAR-0409564, EAR-0409609, and EAR-0409835. This work is supported by the University of Colorado Innovative Seed Grant (IGP) “Study of Ocean Infragravity Waves with a Large Array of Seafloor Seismometers.

Anomalous transparency of water-air interface for low-frequency sound

Sound transmission through water-air interface is normally weak because of a strong mass density contrast. Here we show that the transparency of the interface increases dramatically at low frequencies. Rather counterintuitively, almost all acoustic energy emitted by a sufficiently shallow monopole source under water is predicted to be radiated into atmosphere. Physically, increased transparency at lower frequencies is due to the increasing role of inhomogeneous waves and a destructive interference of direct and surface-reflected waves under water. The phenomenon of anomalous transparency has significant implications for acoustic communication across the water-air interface, generation of ambient noise, and detection of underwater explosions.Comment: 29 pages, including 4 figure

The ATLAS inner detector trigger performance in pp collisions at 13 TeV during LHC Run 2

The design and performance of the inner detector trigger for the high level trigger of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider during the 2016-18 data taking period is discussed. In 2016, 2017, and 2018 the ATLAS detector recorded 35.6 fb$^{-1}$, 46.9 fb$^{-1}$, and 60.6 fb$^{-1}$ respectively of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. In order to deal with the very high interaction multiplicities per bunch crossing expected with the 13 TeV collisions the inner detector trigger was redesigned during the long shutdown of the Large Hadron Collider from 2013 until 2015. An overview of these developments is provided and the performance of the tracking in the trigger for the muon, electron, tau and $b$-jet signatures is discussed. The high performance of the inner detector trigger with these extreme interaction multiplicities demonstrates how the inner detector tracking continues to lie at the heart of the trigger performance and is essential in enabling the ATLAS physics programme

The ATLAS inner detector trigger performance in pp collisions at 13 TeV during LHC Run 2

The design and performance of the inner detector trigger for the high level trigger of the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider during the 2016-18 data taking period is discussed. In 2016, 2017, and 2018 the ATLAS detector recorded 35.6 fb$^{-1}$, 46.9 fb$^{-1}$, and 60.6 fb$^{-1}$ respectively of proton-proton collision data at a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV. In order to deal with the very high interaction multiplicities per bunch crossing expected with the 13 TeV collisions the inner detector trigger was redesigned during the long shutdown of the Large Hadron Collider from 2013 until 2015. An overview of these developments is provided and the performance of the tracking in the trigger for the muon, electron, tau and $b$-jet signatures is discussed. The high performance of the inner detector trigger with these extreme interaction multiplicities demonstrates how the inner detector tracking continues to lie at the heart of the trigger performance and is essential in enabling the ATLAS physics programme

Observation of electroweak production of two jets in association with an isolated photon and missing transverse momentum, and search for a Higgs boson decaying into invisible particles at 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

This paper presents the measurement of the electroweak production of two jets in association with a $Z\gamma$ pair with the $Z$ boson decaying into two neutrinos. It also presents the search for invisible or partially invisible decays of a Higgs boson with a mass of 125 GeV produced through vector-boson fusion with a photon in the final state. These results use data from LHC proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV collected with the ATLAS detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 139 fb$^{-1}$. The event signature, shared by all benchmark processes considered for measurements and searches, is characterized by a significant amount of unbalanced transverse momentum and a photon in the final state, in addition to a pair of forward jets. For electroweak production of $Z\gamma$ in association with two jets, the background-only hypothesis is rejected with an observed (expected) significance of 5.2 (5.1) standard deviations. The measured fiducial cross-section for this process is 1.31$\pm$0.29 fb. Observed (expected) upper limit of 0.37 (0.34) at 95% confidence level is set on the branching ratio of a 125 GeV Higgs boson to invisible particles, assuming the Standard Model production cross-section. The signature is also interpreted in the context of decays of a Higgs boson to a photon and a dark photon. An observed (expected) 95% CL upper limit on the branching ratio for this decay is set at 0.018 (0.017), assuming the 125 GeV Standard Model Higgs boson production cross-section

Acoustic noise interferometry in a time-dependent coastal ocean

The article of record as published may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1121/1.5022287Interferometry of underwater noise provides a way to estimate physical parameters of the water column and the seafloor without employing any controlled sound sources. In applications of acoustic noise interferometry to coastal oceans, the propagation environment changes appreciably during the averaging times that are necessary for the Green's functions to emerge from noise cross-correlations. Here, a theory is developed to quantify the effects of nonstationarity of the propagation environment on two-point correlation functions of diffuse noise. It is shown that temporal variability of the ocean limits from above the frequency range, where noise cross-correlations approximate the Green's functions. The theoretical predictions are in quantitative agreement with results of the 2012 noise interferometry experiment in the Florida Straits. The loss of coherence at high frequencies constrains the passive acoustic remote sensing to exploiting a low-frequency part of measured noise cross-correlations, thus limiting the resolution of deterministic inversions. On the other hand, the passively measured coherence loss contains information about statistical characteristics of the ocean dynamics at unresolved spatial and temporal scales.National Science FoundationResearch Initiation Program of the Naval Postgraduate SchoolOCE165743

Fidelity of low-frequency underwater acoustic measurements by sensors mounted on compact platforms

The article of record as published may be found at https://doi.org/10.1121/1.5130755Measurements by sensors mounted on compact platforms are affected by sound scattering from the platform. Assuming a spherical shape of the platform, this paper investigates the differences between the ambient and measured characteristics of low-frequency signals and noise for scalar and vector sensors. In the near field of the platform, lowfrequency perturbations in oscillatory velocity are generally much larger than pressure perturbations. These perturbations prevent mounted vector sensors from correctly measuring the direction of the free-field oscillatory velocity. The feasibility of a compensation of the distortions in scalar and vector sensor measurements is discussed