Paper 2, Section II, 38B

Waves | Part II, 2011

A uniform elastic solid with wavespeeds cPc_{P} and cSc_{S} occupies the region z<0z<0. An SS-wave with displacement

u=(cosθ,0,sinθ)eik(xsinθ+zcosθ)iωt\mathbf{u}=(\cos \theta, 0,-\sin \theta) \mathrm{e}^{\mathrm{i} k(x \sin \theta+z \cos \theta)-\mathrm{i} \omega t}

is incident from z<0z<0 on a rigid boundary at z=0z=0. Find the form and amplitudes of the reflected waves.

When is the reflected PP-wave evanescent? Show that if the PP-wave is evanescent then the amplitude of the reflected SS-wave has the same magnitude as the incident wave, and interpret this result physically.

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