5.18 elliptically polarized sound wave. Transverse wave in an elastic medium in which the displacement vector at any point rotates about the point, and has a value that varies as the radius vector of an ellipse.
Annotation An elliptically polarized wave is equivalent to two superposed plane-polarized waves of sinusoidal form, with unequal amplitude, in which the displacements lie in perpendicular planes and are displaced in phase by π/2 radians.
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