Fluid-loaded plate. Use complex amplitudes with time dependence and take the velocity potential in the fluid above the elastic plate to be . Let and be the undisturbed mass density and speed of sound. The linearized Euler equations give ; the kinematic boundary condition is . We model loading from one fluid half-space, with no fluid loading on the other face. Loading by identical fluids on both faces instead doubles the fluid term below.
Define the Fourier transform and its inverse by
The Sommerfeld radiation condition selects , with and . Here and in the diffraction calculation below, the outgoing square root is specified by first taking . Draw a vertical cut upwards from and another downwards from , and put
Thus is analytic in the upper half-plane and in the lower half-plane. In the real-frequency limit,
The Fourier transform contour follows the real axis with the limiting-absorption pole prescriptions. In particular, an outgoing propagating component has positive vertical wavenumber.
The kinematic boundary condition gives , so . Eliminating the fluid pressure from the bending balance gives the line-forced fluid-loaded bending plate kernel
For harmonic line force amplitude at the origin, the plate displacement and fluid velocity potential are therefore
An arbitrary localized loading replaces by its Fourier transform. This representation both calculates the response and identifies its different wave components through poles and branch points.
For an observer , , with , the method of steepest descent uses the saddle point . At fixed angle away from grazing, the acoustic far field is
The spreading is that of cylindrical acoustic waves. The phase velocity parallel to the plate is : components with are supersonic in that sense and radiate, whereas those with are subsonic and exponentially decay normally to the plate. The latter have reactive fluid loading and zero mean normal acoustic energy flux.
There is also a real guided root . Indeed, , , and
The residue theorem then gives an outgoing displacement contribution . It transports energy along the plate while its fluid field decays as . Other zeros on continued sheets can describe leaky or resonant waves; branch point contributions describe near and grazing fields. A fixed-angle acoustic far field expansion is not uniform near the plate, where these components can matter.
For a propagating spectral component, write . Its upward normal velocity is and its pressure is . Applying Parseval's identity to the time-averaged acoustic energy flux gives the upward power per unit length of the forcing line:
Equivalently, the integrand is with prefactor . Integrating the radial acoustic intensity of the far field over a semicircle gives the same expression. The input power also feeds guided waves along the plate, so it must not be identified with alone.
Rigid half-plane diffraction. Suppress the time factor and assume . Write , , and denote the incident spatial field by . The Helmholtz equation, Sommerfeld radiation condition, and square-root branches are as above. Across the open positive axis the scattered field and its normal derivative are continuous. Across the rigid negative axis its normal derivative is also continuous, while its potential can jump. Let be this jump, supported on . The transformed scattered field is
The jump transform is analytic in the upper half-plane. The absence of an even scattered component follows from derivative continuity and the outgoing condition. Its normal derivative on either face is .
On the negative axis this derivative must cancel . Since the Half-range Fourier transform of is , the Wiener-Hopf equation has the form
where is the transform of an unknown function supported on and analytic in the lower half-plane. The incident pole lies below the Fourier contour. Divide by and perform pole subtraction in a Wiener-Hopf equation:
The first term is upper analytic and the second lower analytic, since the latter's apparent pole cancels. Equality of the two continued sides gives an entire function. The finite-energy edge condition, with , and the decay of the transforms at infinity force that function to vanish by Liouville's theorem. Consequently
This is the Wiener-Hopf solution of rigid half-plane diffraction with the present transform and time conventions.
Deforming to a steepest descent contour gives a residue from the incident pole precisely when . At that pole ; its residue produces
Thus the total geometrical optics field is plus a reflected wave in the upper reflection region; in the lower shadow region the scattered residue cancels , and outside that shadow the direct incident wave remains. This gives both the amplitude and the spatial support of the geometrical optics fields rather than merely naming a reflected wave.
For , , , the saddle contribution uses and . The diffracted wave is
The total field is to this order. This far-field expression applies away from the shadow/reflection boundaries . There the pole and saddle coalesce, and a uniform Fresnel integral approximation replaces the divergent separate terms by a smooth transition. The exact contour integral remains well defined.
Take , put and , and suppress the common factor . The upper-half-plane incident acoustic plane wave is . A rigid zero-thickness screen imposes the same normal-derivative cancellation on both faces; the scattered velocity potential is consequently odd in . Across the open part it is continuous, so its trace there is zero. These complementary half-line data are what make the Wiener-Hopf method applicable.
Use the Fourier transform , with inverse exponential . The outgoing Helmholtz equation solution is for , where has on the propagating interval and positive real part on evanescent components. The limiting absorption principle supplies the contour prescription. The transform of the trace supported on is analytic below the contour. Let be the analytic upper transform of the unknown derivative on . The prescribed derivative on has transform
Since the upper normal derivative is , the Wiener-Hopf equation is
For the Wiener-Hopf factorization, choose analytic above and analytic below. Their branch cuts go into the opposite half-planes, with . Dividing by and performing pole subtraction in a Wiener-Hopf equation gives
The forcing pole is allocated to the lower analytic part; the second quotient has a removable pole and is upper analytic. Subtracting these parts leaves a common entire function. The finite-energy edge condition excludes an inverse-square-root singularity in the potential: its odd scattered trace is , so . The normal derivative on the open side can be , giving . Both sides of the entire remainder tend to zero. The Liouville theorem sets that remainder to zero, giving the explicit Wiener-Hopf solution of rigid half-plane diffraction:
The scattered field on either side of the screen is therefore
Its forcing-pole residue at is . Deforming to the outgoing steepest descent contour crosses this pole precisely when , where , and . The residue contributes . Thus, away from transition boundaries, the scattered geometrical optics field is
Adding the incident acoustic plane wave gives incident plus unit specular reflection in the upper reflected sector, just the incident wave in the remaining illuminated sectors, and zero in the lower shadow sector. The geometrical shadow boundaries also follow directly by tracing a straight ray to : the reflected ray hits the screen at , and the transmitted incident ray crosses the open part at .
For the diffracted contribution, the outgoing phase has saddle , value , and second derivative . Stationary phase therefore supplies . Substituting , and using , gives
The full asymptotic scattered field is . The angular edge-wave expression is not uniform on the geometrical boundaries. There is also a sign inconsistency in the supplied saddle formula: with its printed inverse exponential , the outgoing saddle is , not . The consistent inverse convention used above gives the requested outgoing field without that ambiguity.
Suppress the common time factor and invert the stated Fourier transform with . Use limiting absorption principle , and choose with positive real part for the evanescent spectrum. For its outgoing continuation is . The pole lies above the inversion contour and below it. These prescriptions fix both radiation and pole signs.
The even interior scattered transform solves , so it is . The exterior transform is . Let be the transform of their common upward normal derivative on . On the rigid plates set both derivatives to zero; on continuity requires them to agree. Hence this derivative is supported on the negative half-line and is analytic below the transform contour. It follows that
The difference between exterior and interior scattered traces on is , where . At the open negative half-line the total traces must match, so this difference equals the incident wave . Its negative-half transform is . The positive-half trace difference has an unknown upper-half-plane transform , giving the Wiener-Hopf equation
Factor , divide by , and subtract the forcing pole using :
The left side is analytic below and the right side above; the pole in the last quotient is removable. Analytic continuation makes their common value entire. The finite-energy edge condition and algebraic factor growth make this entire remainder vanish: the allowed normal-velocity edge singularity is at most inverse-square-root, so its half-line transform is , while . The same edge condition excludes a growing polynomial remainder. This pole subtraction in a Wiener-Hopf equation yields
The corresponding exterior result for the Wiener-Hopf solution for an open parallel-plate waveguide is
Both forms are useful: the first makes the common normal derivative transparent, and the second removes the apparent factor singularity at a grazing saddle.
The final unheaded request has a sign error in its printed exponent. To see this from the derived solution rather than an outgoing-decay assertion alone, simplify the interior transform to
Near , and for fixed . Thus
For , inversion of the first term gives , cancelling the continued incident potential. The remaining branch-point term uses on the specified contour, so it is . Its inverse transform at is proportional to . Therefore the upstream decay of an open parallel-plate waveguide is
The amplitude decays as , not . The positive exponent is present in the original PDF, so it cannot be proved under the stated outgoing problem. The incident pole cancellation and the explicit branch expansion give the corrected conclusion.
Suppress the common time factor and use the Fourier transform convention
A right Half-range Fourier transform is analytic above its convergence line and a left transform below it. For the limiting absorption principle with this time convention take , , , before taking . Set
This is the outgoing acoustic square-root branch: at a propagating real wavenumber, . Put and . Across the fluid part of , the field and its normal derivative are continuous; on the sheet both sides have the same normal velocity. The outgoing Helmholtz equation solutions therefore have equal normal derivatives and opposite scattered traces:
The jump is supported on , and so is a minus transform.
The linear fluid equation and the sheet velocity imply on either face. The incident contribution to the left derivative transform is . Writing , it follows that
The upward net pressure is lower minus upper, hence in transform space. If , the pinned endpoint gives
Combining these identities gives the Wiener-Hopf equation
This is the plane-wave forcing of a pinned elastic half-sheet.
Let and assume initially that the distinguished points are distinct. Besides the branch points , has simple poles at . Its physical-sheet zeros solve the fluid-loaded dispersion relation
For real positive frequency there is exactly one positive real root : the left side increases strictly from zero to infinity on that interval. Equivalently, with , . Its other roots have negative real part and do not belong to this outgoing sheet. Continue with small absorption; lie below the real line and their negative partners above it. The Wiener-Hopf factorization assigns the lower branch cut and pole to , and the upper branch cut and pole to . The continued has a zero at , and at ; these are poles of their reciprocals, rather than poles of the factors. Branch cuts can be drawn away from the real line into the corresponding half-planes.
For this standard assignment a common strip of analyticity and nonvanishing is
The strip shrinks to the real contour as absorption is removed. The factors continue meromorphically beyond their designated half-planes; the allocation of the poles and branch points is part of the radiation condition. The incident pole belongs above the inversion contour. For incidence with the real contour is a direct choice. Other nongrazing angles are obtained by analytic continuation with the incident pole kept on its prescribed side, deforming the contour locally if necessary. Coincident distinguished points and grazing incidence are treated by the corresponding limits, not by dividing by a coincident pole.
Divide the Wiener-Hopf equation by and use pole subtraction in a Wiener-Hopf equation. With , the minus part of is
Indeed these are exactly the incident-pole and upper bare-sheet-pole residues. At the lower bare-sheet pole , the forcing pole is canceled by the pole of before splitting. Thus is analytic on the plus side of the contour. The separated equation is
With the stipulated ,
The scattered field is consequently
The full time-dependent density perturbation is the incident field plus . The two traces at follow by limiting from above and below. A constant rescaling of the two factors does not change this field.
To determine the endpoint slope, reconstruct the sheet transform using the fluid condition:
At the continued has residue . Therefore the derivative transform generically has the lower-plane pole
This pole produces a forbidden incoming bare-sheet wave in the reconstructed displacement: travels towards the endpoint from . A minus transform of the specified outgoing solution must be analytic there. The incoming-pole cancellation at a pinned membrane edge is precisely
For generic parameters this determines
The lower pole is removed; the upper zero of can still produce the legitimate outgoing evanescent acoustic surface wave, whose phase travels to negative . This distinction separates the spurious bare-sheet wave from the coupled fluid-loaded mode. No explicit factorization has been used.
For rigid plates , , an even incident plane wave travelling toward the opening can be scattered using Wiener-Hopf factorization. With time dependence and transform , take on the outgoing sheet. The common normal derivative on is supported on ; its transform is . The interior transform is , while the exterior transform is . These follow from continuity of normal velocity and the half-line pressure jump, followed by pole subtraction in a Wiener-Hopf equation and a finite-energy edge condition.
For a rigid screen , use time dependence and inverse Fourier transform . The scattered field is odd in . Its upper-face trace is supported on , while its normal derivative on is unknown. With the outgoing factor , these traces satisfy , where and . Factor into upper/lower analytic factors. Pole subtraction in a Wiener-Hopf equation and the finite-energy edge condition give the displayed trace. The forcing-pole residue yields geometrical optics, while stationary phase yields the outgoing edge wave
The angular formula excludes the shadow-boundary transition regions; the exact integral supplies their uniform continuation.