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The wave equation is a second-order linear partial differential equation for the description of waves or standing wave fields such as mechanical waves (e.g. water waves, sound waves and seismic waves) or electromagnetic waves (including light waves). It arises in fields like acoustics, electromagnetism, and fluid dynamics.
The electromagnetic wave equation is a second-order partial differential equation that describes the propagation of electromagnetic waves through a medium or in a vacuum. It is a three-dimensional form of the wave equation. The homogeneous form of the equation, written in terms of either the electric field E or the magnetic field B, takes the form:
Intuitively the wave envelope is the "global profile" of the wave, which "contains" changing "local profiles inside the global profile". Each propagates at generally different speeds determined by the important function called the dispersion relation .
Continuous charge distribution. The volume charge density ρ is the amount of charge per unit volume (cube), surface charge density σ is amount per unit surface area (circle) with outward unit normal nĚ‚, d is the dipole moment between two point charges, the volume density of these is the polarization density P.
In electromagnetic theory, the phase constant, also called phase change constant, parameter or coefficient is the imaginary component of the propagation constant for a plane wave. It represents the change in phase per unit length along the path traveled by the wave at any instant and is equal to the real part of the angular wavenumber of the
where ν is the frequency of the wave, λ is the wavelength, ω = 2πν is the angular frequency of the wave, and v p is the phase velocity of the wave. The dependence of the wavenumber on the frequency (or more commonly the frequency on the wavenumber) is known as a dispersion relation.
In physics, the acoustic wave equation is a second-order partial differential equation that governs the propagation of acoustic waves through a material medium resp. a standing wavefield. The equation describes the evolution of acoustic pressure p or particle velocity u as a function of position x and time t. A simplified (scalar) form of the ...
The Schrödinger equation determines how wave functions evolve over time, and a wave function behaves qualitatively like other waves, such as water waves or waves on a string, because the Schrödinger equation is mathematically a type of wave equation. This explains the name "wave function", and gives rise to wave–particle duality.