Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A looped animation of a wave packet propagating without dispersion: the envelope is maintained even as the phase changes. In physics, a wave packet (also known as a wave train or wave group) is a short burst of localized wave action that travels as a unit, outlined by an envelope.
This wave packet becomes increasingly localized with the addition of many waves. The Fourier transform is a mathematical operation that separates a wave packet into its individual plane waves. The waves shown here are real for illustrative purposes only; in quantum mechanics the wave function is generally complex .
The expanding ring of waves is the wave group or wave packet, within which one can discern individual waves that travel faster than the group as a whole. The amplitudes of the individual waves grow as they emerge from the trailing edge of the group and diminish as they approach the leading edge of the group.
Solitary wave in a laboratory wave channel. In mathematics and physics, a soliton is a nonlinear, self-reinforcing, localized wave packet that is strongly stable, in that it preserves its shape while propagating freely, at constant velocity, and recovers it even after collisions with other such localized wave packets.
The concept that matter behaves like a wave was proposed by French physicist Louis de Broglie (/ d ə ˈ b r ɔɪ /) in 1924, and so matter waves are also known as de Broglie waves. The de Broglie wavelength is the wavelength , λ , associated with a particle with momentum p through the Planck constant , h : λ = h p . {\displaystyle \lambda ...
In relative units, the barrier energy is 20, greater than the mean wave packet energy of 14. A portion of the wave packet passes through the barrier. The wave function of a physical system of particles specifies everything that can be known about the system. [8] Therefore, problems in quantum mechanics analyze the system's wave function.
In representing the wave function of a localized particle, the wave packet is often taken to have a Gaussian shape and is called a Gaussian wave packet. [25] [26] [27] Gaussian wave packets also are used to analyze water waves. [28] For example, a Gaussian wavefunction ψ might take the form: [29]
In physics and engineering, the envelope of an oscillating signal is a smooth curve outlining its extremes. [1] The envelope thus generalizes the concept of a constant amplitude into an instantaneous amplitude. The figure illustrates a modulated sine wave varying between an upper envelope and a lower envelope. The envelope function may be a ...