Recent content by physicsst

I am studying the propagation of pulse through a dispersive medium.And as you mentioned it is the change in phase that is important here.But I am confused about this phase thing.We are considering an initially chirped pulse so that there is a frequency variation.Since I've just started studying...

What is meant by phase of a pulse? (Gaussian or sech or any other pulse) How can we mathemaitcally express it and what is the physical meaning of it? I know about the phase of a wave but not sure about that of a pulse since it is a combination of waveforms of different frequencies. Thanks