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O, many times have I seen the wave equation with periodic boundary conditions:
\[\frac{1}{v^2}{\frac{\partial ^2}{\partial t^2}}\varphi(t,x) - {\frac{\partial ^2}{\partial x^2}}\varphi(t,x) = 0,\]subject to $\varphi(t,0)=\varphi(t,L)$ for all $t$. Don’t we all just know that the solutions are linear combinations of elements of the form
\[e^{\pm i(k_n x \pm \omega_n t)},\]with \(k_n = \frac{2\pi n}{L},\quad{n\in \mathbb{Z}},\) and $\omega_n = |k_n||v|$?
Don’t we all knoooooooow this?
Well I forgot how to do this and I should be doing other things but here it goes.
What we all did sometime in the remote past
Separate variables (of course!) by writing $\varphi(t,x)=f(x)g(t)$. Then we have that $\partial_t\varphi(t,x) = f(x)g’(t)$ and $\partial_x\varphi(t,x)=f’(x)g(t)$. Substitute that in:
\[\frac{1}{v^2}{\frac{\partial ^2}{\partial t^2}}\varphi(t,x) - {\frac{\partial ^2}{\partial x^2}}\varphi(t,x) = \frac{1}{v^2}f(x)g''(t) - f''(x)g(t) .\]Assume that $f(x)g(t)\neq 0$ and divide the right-hand side by $f(x)g(t)$. Then we have
\[\frac{1}{v^2}\frac{1}{g(t)}g''(t) = \frac{1}{f(x)}f''(x).\]Now fix some value of $t$, say $t=0$. This equation implies that for all $x$
\[\frac{1}{f(x)}f''(x) = \frac{1}{v^2}\frac{1}{g(0)}g''(0) = \alpha,\]where we have defined $\alpha$ as the right-hand side. It’s clearly a constant. Similarly, if we fix an $x$, say $x=0$, we have that for all $t$, the following equation holds:
\[\frac{1}{v^2}\frac{1}{g(t)}g''(t) = \frac{1}{f(0)}f''(0)=\alpha,\]where the rightmost equality follows from the previous equation (which holds for all $x$, in particular $x=0$). Then both terms are equal to $\alpha$, a constant to be determined.
Let’s try to determine that. Let’s work on the equation for $f$. We have that
\[f''(x) = \alpha f(x),\]which we recognize as a simple second-order homogeneous linear differential equation. The solutions to this equation are of the form
\[f(x) = C_1e^{\mu x} + C_2e^{-\mu x},\]where $C_1,C_2$ are constants to be determined and $\mu^2=\alpha$. Note that $\mu$ might be complex, depending on whether $\alpha$ is positive or negative (or complex too!). Now the periodic boundary conditions imply $f(0)=f(L)$, so
\[f(0) = C_1+C_2 = C_1e^{\mu L } + C_2 e^{-\mu L} = f(L).\]Save that for later. We also have that $f’(0) = f’(L)$, so
\[f'(0) = \mu C_1 - \mu C_2 = \mu C_1 e^{\mu L } - \mu C_2 e^{-\mu L}.\]This implies that, assuming that $\mu\neq 0$,
\[C_1 - C_2 = C_1e^{\mu L} - C_2e^{-\mu L}.\]Adding the conditions for $f(0)=f(L)$ and $f’(0)=f’(L)$ we obtain that \(C_1 = C_1 e^{\mu L},\)
which implies that either $C_1=0$ or $e^{\mu L}=1$. If the first case is true then to avoid the trivial solution, we have to require $C_2\neq 0$ which implies $e^{-\mu L}=1$. Either way, this is unavoidable, and it implies that $\mu L = 2\pi n i$ for some $n\in \mathbb{Z}$.
Therefore we can write
\[k_n = \frac{2\pi n}{L},\quad n\in \mathbb{Z},\]so that $\mu = i k_n$ and the general solution to $f$ is
\[f(x) = C_1e^{ik_n x} + C_2 e^{-i k_n x}.\]Nearly done. Now we work with the equation for $g$:
\[g''(t) = v^2\alpha g(t).\]However, $\alpha = \mu^2 = (ik_n)^2=-k_n^2$, so the general solution is
\[g(t) = K_1e^{ik_n|v|t}+K_2e^{-i k_n |v|t}.\]Here the constants $K_1,K_2$ are left unknown. Now we multiply $g(t)$ by $f(x)$:
\[\varphi(t,x) = f(x)g(t) = C_1K_1e^{i(k_n x + k_n|v|t)}+C_1K_2e^{i(k_n x - k_n|v|t)} + C_2K_1 e^{i(-k_n x + k_n|v|t)} + C_2K_2e^{i(-k_n x - k_n|v|t)}.\]Now let $\omega_n = |k_n||v|$. Then the solution is a linear combination of elements of the form
\[e^{\pm i (k_n x \pm \omega_n t)}.\]