Speaker
Anslyn John
(Stellenbosch University)
Description
The Lorentz-invariance of Maxwell's equations governing electromagnetism in a vacuum is well-established. This is immediately apparent when these laws can be rephrased in terms of the field strength tensor, four-potential and four-current. Obtaining a manifestly covariant formulation of Maxwell's equations in a medium is however non-trivial. Subtleties related to the Lorentz-invariance of the constitutive relation between the electric and displacement fields arise. We report on various attempts to address these issues in dielectrics. We also discuss their extensions to curved spacetimes. We present some applications to phenomena such as Cerenkov radiation
Primary author
Anslyn John
(Stellenbosch University)
