This volume includes articles on the mathematical modeling and numerical simulation of various wave phenomena. For many years Waves 2003 and its five prior conferences have been an important forum for discussions on wave propagation. The topic is equally important for fundamental sciences, engineering, mathematics and, in particular, for industrial applications. Areas of specific interest are acoustics, electromagnetics, elasticity and related inverse and optimization problems. This book gives an extensive overview of recent developments in a very active field of scientific computing.

This volume contains the 178 papers presented at the Fourth International Conference on Mathematical and Numerical Aspects of Wave Propagation in Colorado in June 1998. The papers include theoretical and applied wave propagation in the areas of acoustics, electromagnetism and elasticity.

This volume contains the papers presented at the title conference. Speakers from 13 different countries were represented at the meeting. A broad range of topics in theoretical and applied wave propagation is covered.

Earthquakes, a plucked string, ocean waves crashing on the beach, the sound waves that allow us to recognize known voices. Waves are everywhere, and the propagation and classical properties of these apparently disparate phenomena can be described by the same mathematical methods: variational calculus, characteristics theory, and caustics. Taking a medium-by-medium approach, Julian Davis explains the mathematics needed to understand wave propagation in inviscid and viscous fluids, elastic solids, viscoelastic solids, and thermoelastic media, including hyperbolic partial differential equations and characteristics theory, which makes possible geometric solutions to nonlinear wave problems. The result is a clear and unified treatment of wave propagation that makes a diverse body of mathematics accessible to engineers, physicists, and applied mathematicians engaged in research on elasticity, aerodynamics, and fluid mechanics. This book will particularly appeal to those working across specializations and those who seek the truly interdisciplinary understanding necessary to fully grasp waves and their behavior. By proceeding from concrete phenomena (e.g., the Doppler effect, the motion of sinusoidal waves, energy dissipation in viscous fluids, thermal stress) rather than abstract mathematical principles, Davis also creates a one-stop reference that will be prized by students of continuum mechanics and by mathematicians needing information on the physics of waves.

This IMA Volume in Mathematics and its Applications WAVE PROPAGATION IN COMPLEX MEDIA is based on the proceedings of two workshops: • Wavelets, multigrid and other fast algorithms (multipole, FFT) and their use in wave propagation and • Waves in random and other complex media. Both workshops were integral parts of the 1994-1995 IMA program on "Waves and Scattering." We would like to thank Gregory Beylkin, Robert Burridge, Ingrid Daubechies, Leonid Pastur, and George Papanicolaou for their excellent work as organizers of these meetings. We also take this opportunity to thank the National Science Foun dation (NSF), the Army Research Office (ARO, and the Office of Naval Research (ONR), whose financial support made these workshops possible. A vner Friedman Robert Gulliver v PREFACE During the last few years the numerical techniques for the solution of elliptic problems, in potential theory for example, have been drastically improved. Several so-called fast methods have been developed which re duce the required computing time many orders of magnitude over that of classical algorithms. The new methods include multigrid, fast Fourier transforms, multi pole methods and wavelet techniques. Wavelets have re cently been developed into a very useful tool in signal processing, the solu tion of integral equation, etc. Wavelet techniques should be quite useful in many wave propagation problems, especially in inhomogeneous and nonlin ear media where special features of the solution such as singularities might be tracked efficiently.

This book surveys analytical and numerical techniques appropriate to the description of fluid motion with an emphasis on the most widely used techniques exhibiting the best performance.Analytical and numerical solutions to hyperbolic systems of wave equations are the primary focus of the book. In addition, many interesting wave phenomena in fluids are considered using examples such as acoustic waves, the emission of air pollutants, magnetohydrodynamic waves in the solar corona, solar wind interaction with the planet venus, and ion-acoustic solitons.