E&M wave propagation and polarization

[Carolyn]

Hi, all,

My question is if I have two plane E&M wave traveling in the x-z plane, and they are polarized along the y direction, and I know that there is an angle theta between their propagation vectors, how do I set up the equations to get the intereference pattern in the z direction?

I have set up the equation for the non-polarized part, but I don't know how about incoporate the polarization in y into my equation. Or do I really need to take the polarization into account?

Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[marcusl]

You don't need incorporate polarization into your equations; the fact that both waves are polarized along y means they will interfere simply.

You would have to account for it if they had different polarizations.