
12.6 Helmholtz Electromagnetic Wave Equations 367
Similarly it can be proved that
∇
2
H=µσ
∂
H
∂t
+ µ ∈
∂
2
H
∂t
2
. (12.80)
Since
Eand
H are electric and magnetic field vectors. They have three com-
ponents along the three mutually perpendicular coordinate axes. These wave
equations are valid for each component i.e.,
∇
2
H
x
= μσ
∂H
x
∂t
+ με
∂
2
H
x
∂t
2
. (12.81)
For very high frequency, where the displacement current dominates over the
conduction current. Therefore
∇
2
H
x
= µ ∈
∂
2
H
x
∂t
2
. (12.82)
At lower frequencies in the audio range, conduction current dominates over
the displacement current and the Helmholtz equation changes to the form
∇
2
H
x
= µσ
∂H
x
∂t
. (12.83)
Since both
Eand
H are vectors and having three components each, the-
oretically one has to determine six components to define the electromagnetic
field totally. In actual practice, for different types of source excitation, there
will b e some zero and non zero electric and magnetic vectors as shown in the
next chapter. We try to solve for the non zero
Eand
Hcomponents.
Alternatively if we express the electromagnetic field in terms of a vector
and a scalar potentials, the number of components to be determined will be 4
i.e., three components for one vector and one scalar. These vectors are termed
as vector potentials. One of the options for solving the electromagnetic bound-
ary value problems is to use these vector and scalars (please see Chap. 13). If
B, H and E are expressed respectively as curl A, curl A
′
and curl A
′′
,these
A, A
′
,A
′′
are termed as vector potentials because curl operates on a vector
and generates another vector. A brief introduction about the definition and
mathematical expressions for the vector potential is given in Chap. 5.
Since div
B = 0 always because the monopoles in magnetostatics do not
exist, we can write div
H = 0, because
B=µ
H. Since divergence of a curl of
a vector is always zero, we can write
H=curl
A (12.84)
where
A is a vector potential. div
E = 0 in a source free region. From (12.70),
we get