Traveling plane wave[edit]

The wavefronts of a plane wave traveling in 3-space

Often the term "plane wave" refers specifically to a traveling plane wave, whose evolution in time can
be described as simple translation of the field at a constant wave speed  along the direction
perpendicular to the wavefronts. Such a field can be written as
where  is now a function of a single real parameter , that describes the "profile" of the wave,
namely the value of the field at time , for each displacement . In that case,  is called
the direction of propagation. For each displacement , the moving plane perpendicular to  at
distance  from the origin is called a "wavefront". This plane travels along the direction of
propagation  with velocity ; and the value of the field is then the same, and constant in time, at
every one of its points.[2]

Sinusoidal plane wave[edit]

The term is also used, even more specifically, to mean a "monochromatic" or sinusoidal plane
wave: a travelling plane wave whose profile is a sinusoidal function. That is,
The parameter , which may be a scalar or a vector, is called the amplitude of the wave; the
scalar coefficient  is its "spatial frequency"; and the scalar  is its "phase".
A true plane wave cannot physically exist, because it would have to fill all space.
Nevertheless, the plane wave model is important and widely used in physics. The waves
emitted by any source with finite extent into a large homogeneous region of space can be
well approximated by plane waves when viewed over any part of that region that is
sufficiently small compared to its distance from the source. That is the case, for example, of
the light waves from a distant star that arrive at a telescope.

Plane standing wave[edit]

A standing wave is a field whose value can be expressed as the product of two functions,
one depending only on position, the other only on time. A plane standing wave, in particular,
can be expressed as
where  is a function of one scalar parameter (the displacement ) with scalar or vector
values, and  is a scalar function of time.
This representation is not unique, since the same field values are obtained if  and  are
scaled by reciprocal factors. If  is bounded in the time interval of interest (which is
usually the case in physical contexts),  and  can be scaled so that the maximum value
of  is 1. Then  will be the maximum field magnitude seen at the point .

Properties[edit]
A plane wave can be studied by ignoring the directions perpendicular to the direction
vector ; that is, by considering the function  as a wave in a one-dimensional medium.
Any local operator, linear or not, applied to a plane wave yields a plane wave. Any linear
combination of plane waves with the same normal vector  is also a plane wave.
For a scalar plane wave in two or three dimensions, the gradient of the field is always
collinear with the direction ; specifically, , where  is the partial derivative of  with respect
to the first argument.
The divergence of a vector-valued plane wave depends only on the projection of the
vector  in the direction . Specifically,
In particular, a transverse planar wave satisfies  for all  and .