On the steady-state structure of shock waves in elastic media and dielectrics

Abstract

A simplified system of equations describing small-amplitude nonlinear quasi-transverse waves in an elastic weakly anisotropic medium with complicated dissipation and dispersion is considered. A simplified system of equations derived for describing the propagation and evolution of one-dimensional weakly nonlinear electromagnetic waves in a weakly anisotropic dielectric is found to be of the same type as the system of equations for quasi-transverse waves in an elastic medium. The steady-state structure of small-amplitude quasi-transverse discontinuities and a large number of admissible discontinuity types is studied using this system of equations. Viscous dissipation is traditionally assumed to be described in terms of the next differentiation order as compared to those constituting the hyperbolic system describing long waves, while the terms responsible for dispersion have an even higher differentiation order.