Resonance behavior of a bubble near a spherical inclusion

Abstract

We present an analytical model for the frequency response of a gas microbubble oscillating near a spherical inclusion of arbitrary size and mechanical nature (rigid, fluid, or viscoelastic) immersed in a viscous compressible fluid. The model considers both radial and nonspherical oscillations in the linear regime and predicts how their resonance frequencies and oscillation amplitudes are altered by the bubble size, material properties, and distance to the nearby sphere. As a key application, we demonstrate that scanning the frequency response of a bubble near a viscoelastic object, such as an erythrocyte-like particle mimicking a biological cell, offers a way to recover its mechanical properties through inverse modeling, opening new possibilities for high-resolution elastography at the microscale.