Transport equations for elastic and other waves in random media

Abstract

We derive and analyze transport equations for the energy density of waves of any kind in a random medium. The equations take account of nonuniformities of the background medium, scattering by random inhomogeneities, polarization effects, coupling of different types of waves, etc. We also show that diffusive behavior occurs on long time and distance scales and we determine the diffusion coefficients. The results are specialized to acoustic, electromagnetic, and elastic waves. The analysis is based on the governing equations of motion and uses the Wigner distribution.