Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-collisionless-plasma-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2025/2/e/solution

The real Airy function asymptotics used for the Airy turning-point connection formula are, for ,
These real-axis asymptotics fix both normalization and phase.[ref] Near , , , and . Matching to the constants of c gives and . Therefore
In particular, the decaying component matches the cosine with the requested shift, with a factor two in its oscillatory coefficient. The growing component matches a sine with the indicated minus sign. Expanding into travelling waves gives
The factor two is essential when converting the real oscillatory components to incident and reflected travelling waves.

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