215 views

### Why do we need a second equation for electric field in Maxwell's Equation?

Suppose we are dealing with electrostatics for this question. A physicist carries out experiments with static charges and determines that, the electric field $\vec { E } (\vec { r } )$ is a quantity ...
204 views

### Validity of Fresnel diffraction integral for arbitrary field

The Fresnel diffraction integral is used to calculate the electric field after it has been propagated over a distance $L$. Usually, the validity of the Fresnel diffraction integral is given by an ...
716 views

### Is a wave packet physically realizable as a Fourier series?

In QM a wave packet is modeled as an infinite, or almost infinite, Fourier series, and the Fourier transform provides a transformation between momentum space and position space. To what extent is ...
180 views

### Conditions for characterizing a wave as plane wave

Given a wave equation, say for example $\Psi(x,y,z,t) = a \cos\left(\omega t -\vec{k}\cdot \vec{r} \right)$, what conditions should be met for $\Psi$ to represent a plane wave?
282 views

### Fourier transformation [closed]

I have recently studied Fourier and Laplace transformation in maths. I wanted to understand the utility in physics with some examples that requires this change in dimension and the reason why.
919 views

### How to understand holography and hologram

I've spent some time reading wiki etc. What I get now is that apart from the normal light amplitude information, holograms also record the phase information of light. But this is so difficult for me ...
2k views

### Does the wave function always asymptotically approach zero?

I'm new to quantum physics (and to this site), so please bear with me. I know that quantum mechanics allows particles to appear in regions that are classically forbidden; for example, an electron ...
710 views

### Heisenberg relation

Given that $A(k)=\frac{N}{k^2+\alpha^2}$, show that $\Delta k \Delta x >1$. Considering the above example, according to my textbook, it is written that I must square the above function and ...
2k views

### Can we explain Huygens' principle taking into account Maxwell's predictions?

Descartes gave the corpuscular model (1637) of light. Corpuscular model was further developed by Issac Newton. Model predicted that if the ray light (on refraction) bends towards the normal then the ...
2k views

### Are all scattering states un-normalizable?

I am an undergraduate studying quantum physics with the book of Griffiths. in 1-D problems, it said a free particle has un-normalizable states but normalizable states can be obtained by sum up the ...