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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 wave envelope is the profile of the wave amplitudes; all transverse displacements are bound by the envelope profile. Intuitively the wave envelope is the "global profile" of the wave, which "contains" changing "local profiles inside the global profile".
For example, consider the electromagnetic wave equation: =, where = .. If k 0 and ω 0 are the wave number and angular frequency of the (characteristic) carrier wave for the signal E(r,t), the following representation is useful:
When the equation is applied to waves, k is known as the wave number. The Helmholtz equation has a variety of applications in physics and other sciences, including the wave equation, the diffusion equation, and the Schrödinger equation for a free particle. In optics, the Helmholtz equation is the wave equation for the electric field. [1]
A one-way wave equation is a first-order partial differential equation describing one wave traveling in a direction defined by the vector wave velocity. It contrasts with the second-order two-way wave equation describing a standing wavefield resulting from superposition of two waves in opposite directions (using the squared scalar wave velocity).
All second order differential equations with constant coefficients can be transformed into their respective canonic forms. This equation is one of these three cases: Elliptic partial differential equation, Parabolic partial differential equation and Hyperbolic partial differential equation.
For example, a wavenumber in inverse centimeters can be converted to a frequency expressed in the unit gigahertz by multiplying by 29.979 2458 cm/ns (the speed of light, in centimeters per nanosecond); [5] conversely, an electromagnetic wave at 29.9792458 GHz has a wavelength of 1 cm in free space. In theoretical physics, a wave number, defined ...
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: