Contribution of the inhomogeneous waves in angular-spectrum representations

Abstract

Angular-spectrum representations of wave fields separate naturally into two parts, V h( R , t) containing only homogeneous plane waves and V i( R , t) containing only inhomogeneous plane waves. Some properties of V i( R , t) are presented here. We conclude that, for some problems, V i( R , t) has several unphysical properties, and that under certain specified conditions, V i( R , t) can not be neglected compared to V h( R , t), even far from the sources of the field.