Relationships between various characterizations of wave tails

DOI10.1088/0305-4470/27/21/033MaRDI QIDQ4874899zbMATH OpenOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Luca Bombelli, Sebastiano Sonego

Publication date 28 April 1996

Published in Journal of Physics A: Mathematical and General (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math-ph/0002026

zbMATH Keywords

Huygens' principlepropagation propertyhigher-order progressing waveszeroth-order progressing-wave

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

PDEs in connection with quantum mechanics (35Q40) PDEs in connection with relativity and gravitational theory (35Q75) Gravitational waves (83C35)

Abstract: One can define several properties of wave equations that correspond to the absence of tails in their solutions, the most common one by far being Huygens' principle. Not all of these definitions are equivalent, although they are sometimes assumed to be. We analyse this issue in detail for linear scalar waves, establishing some relationships between the various properties. Huygens' principle is almost always equivalent to the characteristic propagation property, and in two spacetime dimensions the latter is equivalent to the zeroth order progressing wave propagation property. Higher order progressing waves in general do have tails, and do not seem to admit a simple physical characterisation, but they are nevertheless useful because of their close association with exactly solvable two-dimensional equations.

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Cited in

(4)

• A characterization of strong wave tails in curved spacetimes
• Massive spin zero fields in cosmology and the tail-free property
• Analogue gravity
• Level sets as progressing waves: an example for wake-free waves in every dimension

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