Considering almost all the effective processes of physics and chemical reaction in our numerical computation model, we investigate the mechanism of single bubble sonoluminescence (SBSL). For those sonoluminescing single bubbles in water at its flashing phase, the numerical simulation reveals that if the temperature inside the bubble is not high enough which may result in the plenty oxygen molecules and OH radicals undissociated, such as the case of a single argon bubble in $20°\mathrm{C}$ or $34°\mathrm{C}$ water, the radiative attachment of electrons to oxygen molecules and OH radicals contributes most to the SBSL; if the temperature inside the bubble is higher which makes most of the water vapor inside the bubble dissociate into oxygen and hydrogen atoms, such as the case of an argon bubble or a helium bubble in $0°\mathrm{C}$ water, the radiative attachment of electrons to oxygen and hydrogen atoms dominates the SBSL; if the temperature is still higher, such as the case of a xenon bubble in $0°\mathrm{C}$ water, the contribution from electron-neutral atom bremsstrahlung and electron-ion bremsstrahlung and recombination would be comparable with the contribution from the radiative attachment of electrons to oxygen and hydrogen atoms, and they together dominate the SBSL. For sonoluminescing single bubbles in those low vapor pressure liquids, such as in $85\mathrm{wt.}\%$ sulphuric acid, the electron-neutral atom bremsstrahlung and the electron-ion bremsstrahlung and recombination contribute most to the continuous spectrum part of SBSL. The present calculation also provides good interpretations to those observed phenomena, such as emitted photon numbers, the width of optical pulses, the blackbody radiation like spectra. The temperature fitted by the blackbody radiation formula is very different from that calculated by the gas dynamics equations. Besides, the effect of chemical dissociation on the shock wave is also discussed.

• Received 8 January 2006

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.74.026304