LONGITUDINAL WAVES

In longitudinal waves the displacement of the medium is parallel to the propagation of the wave. A wave in a "slinky" is a good visualization.

Longitudinal waves, as known as "l-waves", which are waves that have the same direction of vibration as their direction of travel, which means that the movement of the medium is in the same direction as or the opposite direction to the motion of the wave. Longitudinal waves have been also referred to as compressional waves or compression waves.

A coiled spring that is compressed at one end and then released experiences a wave of compression that travels its length, followed by a stretching; a point on any coil of the spring will move with the wave and return along the same path, passing through the neutral position and then reversing its motion again.

Longitudinal wave is a wave consisting of a periodic disturbance or vibration that takes place in the same direction as the advance of the wave. Sound moving through air also compresses and rarefies the gas in the direction of travel of the sound wave as they vibrate back and forth. The P(primary) seismic waves are also longitudinal. In a longitudinal wave, each particle of matter vibrates about its normal rest position and along the axis of propagation, and all particles participating in the wave motion behave in the same manner, except that there is a progressive change in phase of vibration.

Sound waves
In the case of longitudinal harmonic sound waves, the frequency and wavelength can be described with the formula:

where: y is the displacement of the point on the traveling sound wave; x is the distance the point has traveled from the wave's source; t is the time elapsed; y0 is the amplitude of the oscillations, c is the speed of the wave; and is the angular frequency of the wave.

The quantity x/c is the time that the wave takes to travel the distance x. The ordinary frequency (f) of the wave is given by:

For sound waves, the amplitude of the wave is the difference between the pressure of the undisturbed air and the maximum pressure caused by the wave. Sound's propagation speed depends on the type, temperature and pressure of the medium through which it propagates.

Pressure waves
In an elastic medium with rigidity, a harmonic pressure wave oscillation has the form,

where: o y0 is the amplitude of displacement, o k is the wave number, o x is distance along the axis of propagation, o is angular frequency, o t is time, and o is phase difference.

The force acting to return the medium to its original position is provided by the medium's bulk modulus. In the early development of electromagnetism there was some suggesting that longitudinal electromagnetic waves existed in a vacuum. Heaviside came to the conclusion that electromagnetic waves were not to be found as longitudinal waves in free space" or homogeneous media. But Maxwell's equations do lead to the appearance of longitudinal waves under some circumstances in either plasma waves or guided waves. Basically distinct from the "free-space" waves, such as those studied by Hertz in his UHF experiments, are Zenneck waves.