Two perspectives on equipartition in diffuse elastic fields in three dimensions

The elastodynamic Green function can be retrieved from the cross correlations of the motions of a diffuse field. To extract the exact Green function, perfect diffuseness of the illuminating field is required. However, the diffuseness of a field relies on the equipartition of energy, which is usually described in terms of the distribution of wave intensity in direction and polarization. In a full three dimensional (3D) elastic space, the transverse and longitudinal waves have energy densities in fixed proportions. On the other hand, there is an alternative point of view that associates equal energies with the independent modes of vibration. These two approaches are equivalent and describe at least two ways in which equipartition occurs. The authors gather theoretical results for diffuse elastic fields in a 3D full-space and extend them to the half-space problem. In that case, the energies undergo conspicuous fluctuations as a function of depth within about one Rayleigh wavelength. The authors derive diffuse energy densities from both approaches and find they are equal. The results derived here are benchmarks, where perfect diffuseness of the illuminating field was assumed. Some practical implications for the normalization of correlations for Green function retrieval arise and they have some bearing for medium imaging.