Elastic-wave energy flux

For displacement velocity $\dot{u}$ and stress $\sigma$, the instantaneous elastic-energy flux isFor complex harmonic amplitudes, its average over one temporal period is

For real frequency $\omega >0$ and both vertical wavenumbers $p=k_{\alpha }>0$, $s=k_{\beta }>0$, let $D=k^2+ps$, $A=\rho \omega p/D$, $B=\rho \omega s/D$, and $C=k(2\mu D-\rho {\omega }^2)/(\omega D)$. With traction $\mathbf{t}=({\sigma }_{xz},{\sigma }_{zz})$ and particle velocity $\mathbf{v}=(v_x,v_z)$, each directional P wave/SV-wave field obeys $\mathbf{t}=-Z_{\pm }\mathbf{v}$. Direct displacement-potential substitution yields $Z_{-}=-Z_{+}^{†}$. The Hermitian part of $Z_{+}$ is positive diagonal; thus forward/backward fluxes have opposite signs and mixed directional flux cross terms cancel.

For a mixture of forward and backward elastic waves, $\mathbf{v}={\mathbf{v}}^{+}+{\mathbf{v}}^{-}$ and $\mathbf{t}=-Z_{+}{\mathbf{v}}^{+}-Z_{-}{\mathbf{v}}^{-}$. The diagonal inverse displayed above gives ${\mathbf{v}}^{+}=-(Z_{+}-Z_{-}{)}^{-1}(\mathbf{t}+Z_{-}\mathbf{v})$ and ${\mathbf{v}}^{-}=(Z_{+}-Z_{-}{)}^{-1}(\mathbf{t}+Z_{+}\mathbf{v})$. It is well-defined when both modes propagate strictly away from grazing. At a vanishing vertical wavenumber its singularity signals a failure of this strict directional split.

An incident SV-wave generally reflects as both an SV-wave and a P-wave. A rigid boundary determines their amplitudes by requiring both displacement components to vanish, while phase matching preserves frequency and tangential wavenumber.

For incident SV angle $\theta$, tangential phase matching gives $\sin \varphi =(c_P/c_S)\sin \theta$ for the reflected P-wave. It is evanescent when $\sin \theta >c_S/c_P$.

When the converted P-wave is evanescent, its amplitude decays away from the boundary and the reflected SV amplitude has modulus one. The P field stores reactive energy near the boundary but carries zero mean normal power.

At a perfectly rigid plane, every component of the displacement field vanishes.

A wavevector points in the direction of phase propagation; its magnitude is the wavenumber and its scalar product with position gives the spatial phase.

For a slowly varying local dispersion relation $\omega =\Omega (\mathbf{k};\mathbf{x},t)$, wave-packet rays obey

The WKB method seeks a rapidly oscillating field in the formand determines the phase and slowly varying amplitude order by order in $\epsilon$.

The leading WKB phase obeys an eikonal equation. For a local dispersion relation $\omega =\Omega (k;x,t)$ and $k=\nabla \theta$, it is

On an open set where $u>0$, put $v=\sqrt{u}$. The chain rule gives $\nabla u=2v\nabla v$, so the quadratic eikonal equation is equivalent to $|\nabla v|=1$. For constant positive data $v=v_0$ on a smooth initial curve, the tangential derivative vanishes and the two allowed normal derivatives are ${\partial }_{n}v=\pm 1$. Locally the two solutions are $v=v_0\pm d$, where $d$ is oriented distance along the normal rays; hence $u=(v_0\pm d{)}^2$ wherever the chosen $v$ stays positive and the normal-coordinate map remains invertible.

There are two separate obstructions to using this initial-data chart. A characteristic caustic occurs when normal rays focus and the projection Jacobian determinant vanishes. Alternatively $v$ can reach zero while the geometric rays remain separated: the square-root transformation then ceases to apply and the original Charpit's equations have a degenerate zero-gradient state. A continuation of $u$ beyond either obstruction needs separate justification; squaring an algebraic expression alone does not preserve a prescribed positive square-root branch.

Along a ray $\mathbf{x}(t)$, the derivative of a field $f(\mathbf{x},t)$ is

An evanescent wave has an imaginary component of its wavevector and therefore decays exponentially in that direction instead of transporting energy away as a propagating wave.