Does electromagnetic wave inside a cavity (modeling black body ) interfere with each other? And why in the derivation of Rayleigh law of black body radiation we add energy of different modes (are we supposing constructive interference of the modes inside the cavity)?
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It can be shown that the energy of an electromagnetic field is the sum of energies of its modes. E.g., in a free space, although the waves in different modes do interfere, they all have different frequencies and wave vectors, so that the cross-contributions cancel out (in other words, the EM modes are orthogonal).
answered Jan 20, 2022 at 17:30