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Mathematically, the simplest kind of transverse wave is a plane linearly polarized sinusoidal one. "Plane" here means that the direction of propagation is unchanging and the same over the whole medium; "linearly polarized" means that the direction of displacement too is unchanging and the same over the whole medium; and the magnitude of the displacement is a sinusoidal function only of time ...
Electromagnetic waves (such as light), traveling in free space or another homogeneous isotropic non-attenuating medium, are properly described as transverse waves, meaning that a plane wave's electric field vector E and magnetic field H are each in some direction perpendicular to (or "transverse" to) the direction of wave propagation; E and H ...
A transverse mode of electromagnetic radiation is a particular electromagnetic field pattern of the radiation in the plane perpendicular (i.e., transverse) to the radiation's propagation direction. Transverse modes occur in radio waves and microwaves confined to a waveguide, and also in light waves in an optical fiber and in a laser's optical ...
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".
A plane wave is classified as a transverse wave if the field disturbance at each point is described by a vector perpendicular to the direction of propagation (also the direction of energy transfer); or longitudinal wave if those vectors are aligned with the propagation direction. Mechanical waves include both transverse and longitudinal waves ...
The phase velocity is the rate at which the phase of the wave propagates in space. The group velocity is the rate at which the wave envelope, i.e. the changes in amplitude, propagates. The wave envelope is the profile of the wave amplitudes; all transverse displacements are bound by the envelope profile.
"Longitudinal waves" and "transverse waves" have been abbreviated by some authors as "L-waves" and "T-waves", respectively, for their own convenience. [1] While these two abbreviations have specific meanings in seismology (L-wave for Love wave [2] or long wave [3]) and electrocardiography (see T wave), some authors chose to use "ℓ-waves" (lowercase 'L') and "t-waves" instead, although they ...
Rayleigh waves have energy losses only in two dimensions and are hence more destructive in earthquakes than conventional bulk waves, such as P-waves and S-waves, which lose energy in all three directions. A Love wave is a surface wave having horizontal waves that are shear or transverse to the direction of propagation.