Pulse Propagation

Electromagnetic pulse propagation in free space in 2 spatial dimensions.

This script simulates the propagation of an electromagnetic pulse in time and 2 spatial dimensions. The resulting movie is a map of the beam profile in the transverse direction (i.e. perpendicular to propagation) as a function of time at a given longitudinal position (i.e. along propagation axis).

The result uses plane wave solutions to the wave equation, integrating over all possible directions and frequencies, computed using fast fourier transforms.

The simulations can be used to help visualize how space-time-coupling (STC) affects pulse propagation.

The idea can easily be expanded into 3 spatial dimensions (although the computational cost can become excessive).