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blenx
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It is no doubt that light is a transverse wave in vaccum. But is it also holds true for the case when light is in a medium?
You should at least add not optically active to you list of conditions or absence of spatial dispersion in more generality.chrisbaird said:To answer the OP more directly, if the medium is linear, uniform and isotropic, then all of the electrodynamic equations look the same, except that the permeability/permittivity of free space constants get replaced with the permeability/permittivity constants of the material.
chrisbaird said:blenx, all those equations you just wrote are the free-space (vacuum) versions of Maxwell's equations. I thought from your OP you were curious about waves in matter. The Coulomb gauge is typically only useful in free space, or in linear, uniform, isotropic materials which act like free space as long as you use the right permittivity/permeability of the material in the equations. Those equations show that traveling electromagnetic waves in free space are transverse, although there is a non-traveling near-field longitudinal component.
Yes, light waves are always transverse in media. This means that the oscillations of the electric and magnetic fields of light are perpendicular to the direction of wave propagation.
Transverse waves have oscillations perpendicular to the direction of wave propagation, while longitudinal waves have oscillations parallel to the direction of wave propagation.
No, light waves can only be transverse. This is because light is an electromagnetic wave, which by definition is transverse.
The medium can affect the speed of light, but it does not change the fact that light waves are transverse. The electric and magnetic fields of light may interact with the particles of the medium, causing changes in the speed of light, but the oscillations remain perpendicular to the direction of wave propagation.
Yes, all types of electromagnetic waves, including light, radio waves, microwaves, and X-rays, are transverse. This is a fundamental property of electromagnetic radiation.