Science Forums 2

[GAHD]

i havn't dome more than glace at the articles at the moment, but it sounds to me like this phenominon is very simalar to the method used in old He-Ne tubes to make LASER beams.

"For unknown reasons, the addition of a small amount of noble gas (such as helium, argon, or xenon) to the gas in the bubble increases the intensity of the emitted light dramatically"
That quote made me think of a sciencefair project I did back in Grade 8 building a laser, it's a little out of topic so i've indented it so it can be viewed more as a sidebar.

Tube lasers function by having two mirrors positioned as close to paralell as possible, one mirror is 100% opaque while the other is 90-99% opaque. The gasses inside are excited by either a strong electrical current running through them or in the case of older versions, by having a 'flash lamp' wrapped around the tube in question that excites the atoms of the gas.

The excited gas emits specific frequency light in pulses when an electron get a little too charged and kicks itself up an extra valence layer. After a short period of time in this higher 'shell' the electron emits a photon based on how much extra energy it had and drops back to it's original layer. The photon(s) in question gets absorbed into other excited atoms, which then spit out two photons at the same frequency as the originator. The Current/flash ontinuously overcharges any unexcited molecules, and the domino effect continues untill the amplitude of the synched light wave is strong enough to pass right through the less opaque of the two mirrors.

What it sounds to me is happening in the case of these bubbles is that the frequency of sound is somehow exciting the atomic structure of the gas in question, causing it to emit light for a similar reason.

I'd say the sperical nature of the bubbles would act similar to the compression lense used in Fission bombs to make a shock wave that concentrates the entire force of the ignitor charge into the plutonium all at once, splitting that atom.

In this case it would make the gas charged with a high degree of kinetic energy focused on the center of the bubble. I could easilly see that kinetic energy turning to EM energy by friction. I could also see the larger waves causing much shorter oscilations in the bubbles themselves if they were too small to contain the overall wave.

If the tempurature does not cause enough expansion in the gas to overcome the surface tension the liquid in question, the pressure and energy would continue to build untill such time as the gases started sheding excess energy in the form of photons. The liquid could be reflective enough to send those photons back towards the center ofthe sphere untill such time as it reached a strong enough amplitude to brake through the shell in a single intence wave(flash).


The idea of a bubble pulsating in a standing wave facinates me because it implys that the frequency of sound is causing a harmonic frequency of strong amplitude photonic discharge that is self equiliberising. I might see one application as a very expensive clock.