Project overview:

We have proposed a benchmark experiment that will probe the effects of gravity on Single Bubble Sonoluminescence (SBSL).  SBSL has been the topic of many exciting research efforts in the past decade, yet there still remain several critical characteristics of the phenomenon to "decipher": (1) the light emission mechanism; (2) the disappearance of the bubble at some critical acoustic pressure; and (3) the appearance of quasiperiodic and chaotic oscillations in flash timing.  Gravity, in the context of time-varying buoyancy, is implicated in these unexplained phenomena which have all been observed in 1g experiments. 

The project will include both numerical analysis' and KC-135 Parabolic Flight Experiments.

Further information:

Preliminary analysis:
"The effects of ambient acceleration on Bubble dynamics and single bubble sonoluminescence", by Sean C. Wyatt, R. Glynn Holt, and Ronald A. Roy.
Results presented at the 136th Meeting of  the Acoustical Society of America, Norfolk, VA, October 13, 1998.
Project personnel:

• Glynn Holt
  
• Ronald Roy
  
• Charles Thomas
  
• Sean Wyatt
  

Funding agency:

NASA