Compression and shear waves
In a gas or liquid, sound consists of compression waves. In solids, waves propagate as two different types. A longitudinal wave is associated with compression and decompression in the direction of travel, which is the same process as all sound waves in gases and liquids. A transverse wave, called a shear wave in solids, is due to elastic deformation of the medium perpendicular to the direction of wave travel; the direction of shear-deformation is called the "polarization" of this type of wave. In general, transverse waves occur as a pair of orthogonal polarizations. These different waves (compression waves and the different polarizations of shear waves) may have different speeds at the same frequency. Therefore, they arrive at an observer at different times, an extreme example being an earthquake, where sharp compression waves arrive first, and rocking transverse waves seconds later. The speed of a compression wave in fluids determined by the medium's compressibility and density. In solids, the compression waves analogous to those in fluids depend on compressibility, density, and the additional factor of shear modulus. The speed of shear waves, which can occur only in solids, is determined simply by the solid material's shear modulus and density. Longitudinal waves, also known as "l-waves", 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. Mechanical longitudinal waves are also called compressional waves or compression waves. Longitudinal waves include sound waves (vibrations in pressure, particle displacement, and particle velocity propagated in an elastic medium) and seismic P-waves (created by earthquakes and explosions). In longitudinal waves, the displacement of the medium is parallel to the propagation of the wave. A wave along the length of a stretched Slinky toy, where the distance between coils increases and decreases,
is a good visualization. Sound waves in air are longitudinal, pressure waves.Polarization (also polarisation) is a property of waves that can oscillate with more than one orientation. Electromagnetic waves, such as light, and gravitational waves exhibit polarization; sound waves in a gas or liquid do not have polarization because the medium vibrates only along the direction in which the waves are travelling. By convention, the polarization of light is described by specifying the orientation of the wave's electric field at a point in space over one period of the oscillation. When light travels in free space, in most cases it propagates as a transverse wave—the polarization is perpendicular to the wave's direction of travel. In this case, the electric field may be oriented in a single direction (linear polarization), or it may rotate as the wave travels (circular or elliptical polarization). In the latter case, the field may rotate in either direction. The direction in which the field rotates is the wave's chirality or handedness. The polarization of an electromagnetic (EM) wave can be more complicated in certain cases. For instance, in a waveguide such as an optical fiber or for radially polarized beams in free space,[1] the fields can have longitudinal as well as transverse components. Such EM waves are either TM or hybrid modes. For longitudinal waves such as sound waves in fluids, the direction of oscillation is by definition along the direction of travel, so there is no polarization. In a solid medium, however, sound waves can be transverse. In this case, the polarization is associated with the direction of the shear stress in the plane perpendicular to the propagation direction. This is important in seismology. Polarization is significant in areas of science and technology dealing with wave propagation, such as optics, seismology, telecommunications and radar science. The polarization of light can be measured with a polarimeter. A polarizer is a device that affects polarization.