ADVANCED ELECTROMAGNETISM
Academic year and teacher
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- Versione italiana
- Academic year
- 2022/2023
- Teacher
- GUIDO ZAVATTINI
- Credits
- 6
- Didactic period
- Primo Semestre
- SSD
- FIS/01
Training objectives
- Knowledge of advanced classical electromagnetism and electrodynamics, including electromagnetic radiation, its generation and its interaction with charges. Knowledge of the special theory of relativity and of its experimental and conceptual bases. Ability to solve physical electromagnetic problems in 4-dimensional spacetime.
Prerequisites
- It is necessary to have a basic knowledge of electromagnetism and Maxwell's Equations and to be familiar with calculus of multivariable functions.
Course programme
- Basic properties of Electrostatic and magnetostatic fields. Expansions in series of multipoles. Scalar and vector potentials. Solutions to Laplace's equation. Field energy and momentum, Poynting vector, stress tensor. Maxwell's equations and their solutions in ordinary 3-dimensional space, with time-dependent charge and current distributions. Retarded potentials. Lienard-Wiechert potentials and fields, fields of velocity and of acceleration, radiation. Constant speed of light.
Minkowski's 4-dimensional space-time, Lorentz invariant. Covariance of the laws of physics, basic physical quantities in space-time: scalars, 4-vectors, 4-tensors.
Maxwell's equations in covariant form, and the electromagnetic field as a 4-tensor. Expansion of the radiation field in a series of multipoles. Classical electron theory. Emission of radiation from ultrarelativistic charged particles. Synchrotron radiation, Bremsstrahlung, Cherenkov radiation. From Larmor's formula to the index of refraction.
Brief introduction to the Lagrangian formalism for the electromagnetic field. Limits of classical electromagneitsm. Born-Infeld theory. Critical fields. Radiation reaction. Didactic methods
- Classroom lectures on the blackboard (no slides).
Learning assessment procedures
- Oral exam. The student will be asked to answer questions on the concepts seen during the course and to solve some examples.
Reference texts
- David Griffiths: Introduction to Electrodynamics
Herbert Goldstein: Classical Mechanics
Classical Electrodynamics by S. P. Puri.
