Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-mathematics-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2017/ii/paper-4/36d/a/solution

Use and the physical real part of the printed plane wave. Its null wavevector obeys , so each component satisfies . Direct differentiation of the defined stress tensor gives
The trace is proportional to for a single plane wave and hence vanishes. Therefore
This is local conservation of energy and momentum conservation; spatial integration gives conserved total charges when the boundary flux vanishes. For a finite-amplitude complex phasor, one takes the real field before quadratic products and may time-average: in transverse-traceless gauge. Its energy density is nonnegative and its flux travels in the positive direction.

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