Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2009 ib Paper 2 17A Solution Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
The vacuum Maxwell equations are , and . Taking the curl of Faraday's equation and using gives . The same calculation for Ampère's equation gives . Hence each Cartesian component satisfies the electromagnetic wave equation.
Model the walls as a perfect conductor, with no oscillating fields in its interior. The tangential electric field is zero at the surface, otherwise it would drive unbounded conductor currents. The normal magnetic field is zero, since the divergence-free field has a continuous normal component and the interior oscillating field is zero. Thus and . Normal and tangential may be nonzero because surface charge and surface current support their jumps.
The PDF writes the full magnetic field as . Taken literally, this cannot be a nonzero travelling wave: , so for it forces . The subsequent requests require transverse components. The consistent intended reading is , with transverse fields determined by the Maxwell equations. Use that reading below.
All fields have the same factor. Put . The harmonic Maxwell equations are and . Their and components givetogether with and . Substitution and solving, for , givesThe corresponding electric components areFor a transverse electric mode of a rectangular waveguide, . The electromagnetic wave equation becomesAt , the tangential component vanishes, so ; at , the corresponding condition gives . These are Neumann boundary conditions, and the normal- conditions give the same conclusions through the displayed transverse magnetic components. Separation giveswhere are integers and . The constant candidate is not a physical oscillating mode: its transverse derivatives vanish, so it has and Faraday's equation forces for . More generally a hollow single-conductor guide has no transverse-electromagnetic zero-cutoff mode: its transverse electrostatic potential is harmonic with the same constant boundary value, hence constant, leaving zero transverse field.
The dispersion relation is . The waveguide cutoff frequency for this mode is ; below it is imaginary and the field is evanescent. Since , the lowest cutoff occurs at :For a mode propagating in the positive direction (), above its own cutoff , the phase velocity and group velocity areThese waveguide phase and group velocities have product . The superluminal phase speed describes motion of a constant phase, while a narrow wave packet travels at the subluminal group velocity; it does not transmit information faster than light. At cutoff there is no travelling mode with nonzero longitudinal flux.
Waveguide cutoff frequency 2026-10-14
For a transverse electric mode of a rectangular waveguide, the dispersion relation is , with . Below , the longitudinal wave number is imaginary and the mode is evanescent. If , the lowest propagating cutoff is , or ordinary frequency .