Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2014 / iii / Paper 72 / 2 / b / Solution

For the incident acoustic plane wave, set $q_0=k\sin \theta$ and ${\beta }_0=k\cos \theta >0$. The flat reflected field and total field areTherefore ${\partial }_z{\psi }^{[0]}(x,0)=-2i{\beta }_0{e}^{i{q}_{0}x}$ and the first-order rough-surface scattered field isIt is linear in the height. Since $⟨h(x)⟩=0$, its mean vanishes, with the expectation interpreted through finite windows or stationary spectral distributions when needed. HenceThe coherent first-order reflection is the flat-surface reflection. If the field symbol is instead used only for the rough correction, its first-order mean is zero. Stationarity ensures the coherent reflection retains the incident horizontal wavenumber, but zero mean height already explains the vanishing linear correction. The nonzero root mean square height does not enter this mean at first order; it does enter the fluctuating reflected field and its intensity.