Elementary Acoustic and Electromagnetic Edge Waves

The relationships exists between acoustic and electromagnetic elementary edge waves (EEWs) propagating in directions that belong to the diffraction cone. The goal is to derive high-frequency asymptotics for EEWs. The appropriate tangency point must be the origin of the diffracted ray coming to the observation point on the tangential wedge. The chapter discusses the analytical properties of EEWs. It presents the results of numerical calculations of the elementary edge-diffracted waves radiated by the non-uniform scattering sources. The central idea of physical theory of diffraction (PTD) is the separation of surface scattering sources into uniform and non-uniform components in such a way that they would be the most appropriate for calculation of the scattered field. The asymptotic theory is well suited for the calculation of bistatic scattering in the case, when both planar faces of the edge are illuminated by the incident wave.