The scattering of electromagnetic pulses by a slit in a conducting screen

A direct method for calculating the impulse response of a slit in a conducting screen is presented. The method may be used to study the scattering of electromagnetic pulses by conducting objects with planar boundaries and straight edges. The impulse response is obtained by assuming that the total response is composed of two sequences of diffracted waves. The solution is determined for the first two diffracted waves in one sequence by using Green's functions and the equivalence principle. The method is applied iteratively to obtain the solution for additional waves in the sequence. The solution for the other sequence is obtained by a transformation of coordinates. The total response is the sum of the two sequences of waves. The cases of
E
-polarization and
H
-polarization are considered. Curves are presented to depict 1) the successive diffractions of the pulses by the edges of the slit, and 2) the impulse response of the slit.