Pulsed Field Diffraction by a Perfectly Conducting Wedge: A Spectral Theory of Transients Analysis

The canonical problem of pulsed field diffraction by a perfectly conducting wedge is analyzed via the spectral theory of transients (STT). In this approach the field is expressed directly in the time domain as a spectral integral of pulsed plane waves. Closed-form expressions are obtained by analytic evaluation of this integral, thereby explaining explicitly in the time domain how spectral contributions add up to construct the field. For impulsive excitation the final results are identical with those obtained previously via time-harmonic spectral integral techniques. Via the STT, we also derive new solutions for a finite (i.e., nonimpulsive) incident pulse. Approximate uniform diffraction functions are derived to explain the field structure near the wavefront and in various transition zones. They are the time-domain counterparts of the diffraction coefficients of the geometrical theory of diffraction (GTD) and the uniform theory of diffraction (UTD). An important feature of the STT technique is that it can be extended to solve the problem of wedge diffraction of pulsed beam fields (i.e., spacetime wavepackets). This subject will be addressed in a companion paper.