From Electrostatics to Optics: A Concise Electrodynamics Course

ISBN-13: 9783642850899 / Angielski / Miękka / 2012 / 255 str.

Gunter Scharf

Opis

After a historical introduction and mathematical preliminaries the book turns to electrostatics in vacuum, whereby Maxwells equations are not postulated as axioms, but deduced from electrostatics plus Lorentz invariance. These general ideas are then illustrated by many applications, radiation phenomena in particular. Chapter 4 is devoted to the completely different subject of phenomenological electrodynamics of matter, with the equations derived by spatial averaging, assuming a classical model for the atomic structure of matter. The chapter on optics is not treated as an independent field, but rather an application of Chapter 4, where significant themes such as wave optics, light scattering, geometrical optics, diffraction theory, and the laser are discussed. Finally, an epilogue relates the classical theory to modern quantum electrodynamics.

Spis treści

0. Preliminaries.- 0.0 Historical Introduction.- 0.1 Some Topics of Analysis in ?3.- 0.2 The Laplace Equation.- 0.3 Problems.- 1. Electrostatics in Vacuum.- 1.1 Electric Charge, Field Strength and the Equations of Electrostatics.- 1.2 Multipole Expansion.- 1.3 Boundary Value Problems and Eigenfunction Expansion.- 1.4 Green’s Functions.- 1.5 Energy of the Electric Field.- 1.6 Problems.- 2. The Relativity Principles and Maxwell’s Equations.- 2.1 A Review of Special Relativity.- 2.2 Tensors in Minkowski Space.- 2.3 Lorentz Force and the Electromagnetic Field Tensor.- 2.4 Maxwell’s Equations.- 2.5 Discussion of Maxwell’s Equations, Induction Law.- 2.6 Conservation Laws.- 2.7 Problems.- 3. Electrodynamics in Vacuum.- 3.1 Stationary Magnetic Fields.- 3.2 Motion of Particles in Electromagnetic Fields.- 3.3 Electromagnetic Radiation.- 3.4 Production of Radiation, Electromagnetic Potentials.- 3.5 Electromagnetic Fields of Moving Particles.- 3.6 Lagrange Formalism of Electrodynamics.- 3.7 Problems.- 4. Phenomenological Electrodynamics in Simple Matter.- 4.1 Derivation of the Phenomenological Maxwell’s Equations.- 4.2 Phenomenological Maxwell’s Equations and Constitutive Relations.- 4.3 Macroscopic Conservation Laws, Boundary Conditions.- 4.4 Motion of Particles Through Matter.- 4.5 Problems.- 5. Optics.- 5.1 Reflection and Refraction.- 5.2 Light Scattering.- 5.3 Geometrical Optics.- 5.4 Diffraction.- 5.5 The Laser — An Optical Trumpet.- 5.6 Problems.- 6. Epilogue: Quantum Electrodynamics.