- #1
ian2012
- 80
- 0
I was just looking at an expression (a dispersion relation, omega^2 = ...) similar to that of warm electron's in a plasma http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_oscillation expect with an extra imaginary term, which I think comes out from the full derivation of the dispersion relation for warm electrons. I am guessing the relation that everybody knows of is then the Real part of the expression I was looking at.
My question is, can a purely imaginary term have some physical significance? Surely it isn't physical?
My question is, can a purely imaginary term have some physical significance? Surely it isn't physical?