Search for literature on cochlear reflections. ("reinifrosch@xxxxxxxx" )

Subject: Search for literature on cochlear reflections.
From:    "reinifrosch@xxxxxxxx"  <reinifrosch@xxxxxxxx>
Date:    Tue, 8 Aug 2006 18:26:16 +0200

Dear colleagues,

While working on a planned monograph on cochlear origins
of musical ("sensory") consonance I got interested in
the reflections of "passive" waves in the basal turn of
the cochlea (or, rather, in the absence of such reflections
in a smooth cochlea).

Reflections of "long" waves (wavelength much greater than 
2 pi times channel height) are negligible if the spatial rate of
change of the local wavelength lambda fulfils the following 
inequality:

d lambda / dx << 2 pi .                      (1)

[The local wavelength is 2 pi / k , where k is the local
wave number.] 

A formula equivalent to (1) [see above] is Eq. (4.3.7) 
in E. de Boers chapter of the book "The Cochlea"
[P. Dallos et al., eds., Springer, New York, 1996]. 
A detailed derivation of that formula is not given, however. 
I have just succeeded to work out such a derivation, I think; 
nevertheless, I would be grateful for information on helpful
not-too-high-level books or papers.  

Reinhart Frosch.


Reinhart Frosch,
Dr. phil. nat.,
r. PSI and ETH Zurich,
Sommerhaldenstr. 5B,
CH-5200 Brugg.
Phone: 0041 56 441 77 72.
Mobile: 0041 79 754 30 32.
E-mail: reinifrosch@xxxxxxxx .