Inadequacies in the conventional treatment of the radiation field of moving sources

DOI10.1063/1.3215978MaRDI QIDQ3583649zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Houshang Ardavan, Arzhang Ardavan, John Singleton, Joseph H. Fasel, Andrea Schmidt

Publication date 17 August 2010

Published in Journal of Mathematical Physics (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1350

zbMATH Keywords

Maxwell equationswave equationselectromagnetic fields

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Waves and radiation in optics and electromagnetic theory (78A40)

Abstract: There is a fundamental difference between the classical expression for the retarded electromagnetic potential and the corresponding retarded solution of the wave equation that governs the electromagnetic field. While the boundary contribution to the retarded solution for the {em potential} can always be rendered equal to zero by means of a gauge transformation that preserves the Lorenz condition, the boundary contribution to the retarded solution of the wave equation governing the {em field} may be neglected only if it diminishes with distance faster than the contribution of the source density in the far zone. In the case of a source whose distribution pattern both rotates and travels faster than light {em in vacuo}, as realized in recent experiments, the boundary term in the retarded solution governing the field is by a factor of the order of $R^{1/2}$ {em larger} than the source term of this solution in the limit that the distance $R$ of the boundary from the source tends to infinity. This result is consistent with the prediction of the retarded potential that part of the radiation field generated by a rotating superluminal source decays as $R^{-1/2}$, instead of $R^{-1}$, a prediction that is confirmed experimentally. More importantly, it pinpoints the reason why an argument based on a solution of the wave equation governing the field in which the boundary term is neglected (such as appears in the published literature) misses the nonspherical decay of the field.

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Cites work

• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 1306464 (Why is no real title available?)
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 3082267 (Why is no real title available?)
• Bounds on fields from fast rotating sources, and others
• Comment on: ``Method of handling the divergences in the radiation theory of sources that move faster than their waves by H. Ardavan
• Method of handling the divergences in the radiation theory of sources that move faster than their waves

Cited in

(3)

• Comment on: ``Method of handling the divergences in the radiation theory of sources that move faster than their waves by H. Ardavan
• The speed-of-light catastrophe
• Stationary phase approximation for the Mach surface of superluminally moving source

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