Non-dissipative electromagnetic media with two Lorentz null cones

DOI10.1016/J.AOP.2012.11.005zbMATH Open1268.35117arXiv1108.4207OpenAlexW3121417323MaRDI QIDQ1945815FDOQ1945815

Authors: Matias F. Dahl 

Publication date: 17 April 2013

Published in: Annals of Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: We study Maxwell's equations on a 4-manifold where the electromagnetic medium is modelled by an antisymmetric (2, 2)-tensor kappa with real coefficients. In this setting the Fresnel surface is a fourth order polynomial surface in each cotangent space that acts as a generalisation of the light cone determined by a Lorentz metric; the Fresnel surface parameterises electromagnetic wave-speeds as a function of direction. The contribution of this paper is the complete pointwise description of all electromagnetic medium tensors that satisfy the following conditions: (i) kappa is invertible, (ii) kappa is skewon-free, (iii) kappa is birefringent, that is, the Fresnel surface of kappa is the union of two distinct light cones. We show that there are only three classes of mediums with these properties. Moreover, we give explicit expressions in local coordinates for each class.

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1108.4207

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zbMATH Keywords

Maxwell's equationsanisotropic mediumlight conenull conepropagation of electromagnetic waveselectromagnetic medium

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Maxwell equations (35Q61) Electromagnetic theory (general) (78A25)

Cited In (6)

• Characterisation and representation of non-dissipative electromagnetic medium with two Lorentz null cones
• The non-birefringent limit of all linear, skewonless media and its unique light-cone structure
• Contact topology and electromagnetism: the Weinstein conjecture and Beltrami-Maxwell fields
• The Kummer tensor density in electrodynamics and in gravity
• Non-minimal Einstein-Maxwell theory: the Fresnel equation and the Petrov classification of a trace-free susceptibility tensor
• Near-zero-index media as electromagnetic ideal fluids

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