# Template:Incident potential for two dimensions

### Incident potential

To create meaningful solutions of the velocity potential $\phi$ in the specified domains we add an incident wave term to the expansion for the domain of $x \lt 0$ above. The incident potential is a wave of amplitude $A$ in displacement travelling in the positive $x$-direction. We would only see this in the time domain $\Phi(x,z,t)$ however, in the frequency domain the incident potential can be written as

$\phi_{\mathrm{I}}(x,z) =e^{-k_{0}x}\chi_{0}\left( z\right).$

The total velocity (scattered) potential now becomes $\phi = \phi_{\mathrm{I}} + \phi_{\mathrm{D}}$ for the domain of $x \lt 0$.

The first term in the expansion of the diffracted potential for the domain $x \lt 0$ is given by

$a_{0}e^{k_{0}x}\chi_{0}\left( z\right)$

which represents the reflected wave.

In any scattering problem $|R|^2 + |T|^2 = 1$ where $R$ and $T$ are the reflection and transmission coefficients respectively. In our case of the semi-infinite dock $|a_{0}| = |R| = 1$ and $|T| = 0$ as there are no transmitted waves in the region under the dock.