Electromagnetic momentum conservation in media
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Publication:2431330
Abstract: That static electric and magnetic fields can store momentum may be perplexing, but is necessary to ensure total conservation of momentum. Simple situations in which such field momentum is transferred to nearby bodies and point charges have often been considered for pedagogical purposes, normally assuming vacuum surroundings. If dielectric media are involved, however, the analysis becomes more delicate, not least since one encounters the electromagnetic energy-momentum problem in matter, the `Abraham-Minkowski enigma', of what the momentum is of a photon in matter. We analyze the momentum balance in three nontrivial examples obeying azimuthal symmetry, showing how the momentum conservation is satisfied as the magnetic field decays and momentum is transferred to bodies present. In the last of the examples, that of point charge outside a dielectric sphere in an infinite magnetic field, we find that not all of the field momentum is transferred to the nearby bodies; a part of the momentum appears to vanish as momentum flux towards infinity. We discuss this and other surprising observations which can be attributed to the assumption of magnetic fields of infinite extent. We emphasize how formal arguments of conserved quantities cannot determine which energy-momentum tensor is more "correct", and each of our conservation checks may be performed equally well in the Minkowski or Abraham framework.
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Cited in
(13)- On the formulations of the electromagnetic stress-energy tensor
- Minkowski momentum resulting from a vacuum-medium mapping procedure, and a brief review of Minkowski momentum experiments
- Introducing electromagnetic field momentum
- A general realistic treatment of the disk paradox
- An elementary approach to electromagnetic momentum in matter
- Electromagnetic momentum in magnetic media and the Abraham–Minkowski controversy
- Linear momentum density in quasistatic electromagnetic systems
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- Reply to comment on ``Electromagnetic momentum conservation in media, by I. Brevik and S. Å. Ellingsen.
- Comment on ``Electromagnetic momentum conservation in media, by I. Brevik and S. Å. Ellingsen
- Relativistic analysis of the dielectric Einstein box: Abraham, Minkowski and total energy-momentum tensors
- Momentum–energy of the non-radiating electromagnetic field: open problems?
- Multipole charge conservation and implications on electromagnetic radiation
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