Past exam of the physics 2 paper of the University of Oxford / 2021 resit / 5 / a / Solution

In SI units, the Maxwell equations in vacuum with prescribed charge density $\rho$ and current density $\mathbf{J}$ areWhen $\rho =0$ and $\mathbf{J}=0$, take the curl of the third equation and substitute the fourth. Using the curl of the curl identity and $\nabla \cdot \mathbf{E}=0$ gives the electromagnetic wave equation:For example, $\mathbf{E}=E_0\hat{\mathbf{x}}\cos (kz-\omega t)$, $\mathbf{B}=(E_0/c)\hat{\mathbf{y}}\cos (kz-\omega t)$ is a plane electromagnetic wave provided $\omega =ck$. The electric field, magnetic field and propagation direction are mutually perpendicular.

The Maxwell equations are linear, so the superposition principle applies to fields. However, the Poynting vector is quadratic:One may add the average wave intensities only when the cross terms vanish under the actual detector average. For co-propagating plane electromagnetic waves of parallel linear polarization, averaging over optical cycles but potentially resolving the difference frequency givesIf the detector integrates for $T$, the last term acquires $\mathrm{sinc}[({\omega }_1-{\omega }_2)T/2]$, with sinc function convention $\mathrm{sinc}x=\sin x/x$, evaluated at the midpoint phase. Thus $T\gg 1/|f_1-f_2|$ suppresses beats, and the infinite-time average adds the wave intensities exactly for distinct fixed frequencies. Random mutually uncorrelated wave phases also remove the cross terms in an ensemble average; orthogonal linear polarizations remove them for co-propagating waves in polarization-insensitive detection. Merely having different frequencies does not remove a resolved beat signal: two nearly equal frequencies with fixed relative wave phase are a concrete counterexample. For different propagation directions, the relevant addition is of average Poynting vectors, or their components through the chosen detector surface.