Homogenization in random media and effective medium theory for high frequency waves (Q2467060)

The author considers the homogenization of the following wave equation \[ k(x/\varepsilon,\omega) {\partial^2p_\varepsilon\over\partial t^2}- \nabla\cdot a(x/\varepsilon,\omega)\nabla p_\varepsilon(t, x,\omega)= 0,\quad t> 0,\;x\in\mathbb{R}^d, \] \[ p_\varepsilon(0,x)= g_\varepsilon(x),\;{\partial p_\varepsilon\over\partial t}(0,x)= j_\varepsilon(x),\quad x\in\mathbb{R}^d. \] Here the compressibility \(k(x,\omega)\) and the inverse density tensor \(a(x,\omega)\) are random fields defined for \(x\in\mathbb{R}^d\), where the spatial dimension \(d\geq 1\), and \(\omega\in\Omega\), a set such that \((\Omega,{\mathcal F},P)\) is an abstract probability space. The author considers the case, when the correlation length is much smaller than the wavelength. Provided that the wavelength is of order \(\varepsilon^\alpha\) for \(\alpha> 0\) sufficiently small, the author shows that in the limit \(\varepsilon\to 0\), the energy density of the wave equation with random coefficients is indeed approximated by the energy density of waves propagating in the appropriate effective medium. To this end, the author uses the theory of Wigner transforms.