Acoustokinetics: Crafting force landscapes from sound waves

TL;DR

This paper introduces acoustokinetics, an analytical framework that decomposes sound waves into amplitude and phase to study and design complex acoustic force landscapes, enabling novel insights and applications.

Contribution

It presents a new analytical approach for understanding and designing acoustic forces by factoring sound waves into amplitude and phase profiles.

Findings

Analyzed nonconservative force fields and standing waves.

Demonstrated inverse design of sound waves for specific force landscapes.

Provided case studies on tractor beams and pseudo-standing waves.

Abstract

Factoring the pressure field of a harmonic sound wave into its amplitude and phase profiles provides the foundation for an analytical framework for studying acoustic forces that not only provides novel insights into the forces exerted by specified sound waves, but also addresses the inverse problem of designing sound waves to implement desired force landscapes. We illustrate the benefits of this acoustokinetic framework through case studies of purely nonconservative force fields, standing waves, pseudo-standing waves, and tractor beams.