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In physics, a sinusoidal plane wave is a special case of plane wave: a field whose value varies as a sinusoidal function of time and of the distance from some fixed plane. It is also called a monochromatic plane wave , with constant frequency (as in monochromatic radiation ).
Tracing the y component of a circle while going around the circle results in a sine wave (red). Tracing the x component results in a cosine wave (blue). Both waves are sinusoids of the same frequency but different phases. A sine wave, sinusoidal wave, or sinusoid (symbol: ∿) is a periodic wave whose waveform (shape) is the trigonometric sine ...
The term is also used, even more specifically, to mean a "monochromatic" or sinusoidal plane wave: a travelling plane wave whose profile () is a sinusoidal function. That is, (,) = (() +) The parameter , which may be a scalar or a vector, is called the amplitude of the wave; the scalar coefficient is its "spatial frequency"; and the scalar is its "phase shift".
Sinusoidal plane-wave solutions are particular solutions to the wave equation. The general solution of the electromagnetic wave equation in homogeneous, linear, time-independent media can be written as a linear superposition of plane-waves of different frequencies and polarizations .
A sinusoidal plane wave is one special solution of these equations. Maxwell's equations explain how these waves can physically propagate through space. The changing magnetic field creates a changing electric field through Faraday's law.
The result is a linear system of three equations, which can be solved by Gaussian elimination or Cramer's rule, for example. An alternative way uses the inscribed angle theorem for parabolas. In the following, the angle of two lines will be measured by the difference of the slopes of the line with respect to the directrix of the parabola.
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1-dimensional corollaries for two sinusoidal waves The following may be deduced by applying the principle of superposition to two sinusoidal waves, using trigonometric identities. The angle addition and sum-to-product trigonometric formulae are useful; in more advanced work complex numbers and fourier series and transforms are used.