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The Wave Equation

The wave equation is a second order hyperbolic partial differential equation1 of potential theory. It is the model equation for wave-like phenomena that occur in a number of branches of physics including acoustics and electromagnetics. It is most often written as

where is the Laplace operator2 and c is equivalent to the propagation velocity of the wave. In the second derivative with respect to t the term t usually represents time. The term is a function of both space and time and represents the transient potential, which can for example be the electric potential in electromagnetics or the velocity potential in acoustics. In practice, the spatial dimension is either 1D, 2D or 3D. In one dimension the wave equation has the form

In two dimensions the wave equation has the we have:

and in three dimension,

Special Cases Steady State In the case of a steady state the time derivative is zero and the wave equation reduces to Laplaces equation3

Sinusoidal solutions or quasi-steady state In this special case it is assumed that the solution of the wave equation is a sinusoidal function with time. It is assumed that the solution can be written

for the two-dimensional problem and

Partial Differential Equations Laplace Operator or Laplacian 3 Laplaces Equation

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for the three-dimensional problem and when

is the angular frequency.

Differentiating4 this expression twice with respect to time t and with respect to the spatial coordinates gives

These may now be substituted into the wave equation and the terms in cancelled out to give

may be

By introducing a term called the wavenumber with symbol , and defined so that rearranging gives the Helmholtz equation5

and

The Helmholtz equation can also be derived from the wave equation in the same way by using phasors6, that is following the substitution

Periodic Solutions of the wave equation Many physical wave propagation phenomena that are governed by the wave equation are periodic7 or approximate closely to periodic functions. In the case of periodicity then the properties of the field can be written as the sum of a spatial function that holds information on the amplitude and relative phase of the frequency components (usually as a complex number) and sinusoidal functions with time, as a result of Fourier series8 analysis. For each of the frequency components the wave equation can be reduced to a Helmholtz equation, as shown in the previous section. Each of the frequency components can be considered independently and the Fourier summation applied to obtain the periodic solution.

Partial Differentiation Helmholtz Equation 6 Phasors 7 Periodic Functions 8 Fourier Series

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