The build up rate of broadband spatial coherence between multi-sensor passive arrays in the ocean waveguide

Broadband noise correlation methods for the passive extraction of information about the point-to-point propagation of waves between distant sensor locations have received considerable attention in the literature. This talk addresses the rate at which the wave coherence accumulates to overcome stochastic random fluctuations in a spatially correlated random wave field. It is shown that the expected magnitude of the random uncertainty associated with a single realization of the sample cross-correlation function depends on the total power incident on the sensors. This notion is applied to quantify the emergence rate of the coherence between correlated beams in the ocean waveguide. The point-to-point build-up rate is compared to the gain achieved through the application of directional filters over multi-sensor line arrays. Various array geometry scenarios of experimental interest are considered. These results are straight forwardly extendable to other environments such as seismics, helioseismics, and nondestru...