2011/02/02 by Pablo L. Saldanha · 20 citations
Earth and Planetary Sciences · Engineering · Physics and Astronomy · #Classical mechanics #Division (mathematics) #Electromagnetic field #Electromagnetic radiation #Energy–momentum relation #Geophysical and Geoelectrical Methods #Geophysics and Sensor Technology #Kinetic energy #Lorentz force #Magnetic field #Minkowski space #Momentum (technical analysis) #Physics #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #physics.optics #quant-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.optcom.2011.02.007
published in Optics Communications 284(12), 2653-2657 (Elsevier BV) · 6 pages, 1 figure
arxiv created 2011/02/02 · openalex publication_date 2011/02/21 · arxiv updated 2011/04/27 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We defend a natural division of the energy density, energy flux and momentum density of electromagnetic waves in linear media in electromagnetic and material parts. In this division, the electromagnetic part of these quantities have the same form as in vacuum when written in terms of the macroscopic electric and magnetic fields, the material momentum is calculated directly from the Lorentz force that acts on the charges of the medium, the material energy is the sum of the kinetic and potential energies of the charges of the medium and the material energy flux results from the interaction of the electric field with the magnetized medium. We present reasonable models for linear dispersive non-absorptive dielectric and magnetic media that agree with this division. We also argue that the electromagnetic momentum of our division can be associated with the electromagnetic relativistic momentum, inspired on the recent work of Barnett [Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 070401 (2010)] that showed that the Abraham momentum is associated with the kinetic momentum and the Minkowski momentum is associated with the canonical momentum.