Lectures: Mayer Hall A 2702,
Tuesday and Thurssday 9:30 - 10:50
In reality: Zoom session for questions on material
previously distributed
Problem Session: None (no student interest)
Grading
Homework assigned every 1-2 weeks
One mid term. Date will be advertised.
Final Exam: Take home, over weekend
June 5-8
Grade will be a combination of 30%
Final, 20% mid term, and 50%
homework.
Office Hours
Prof. Grinstein: Thursday:
3:30pm, zoom (send request no later than 3pm)
Nathan Butcher (TA): Monday, Wednesday and Friday,
zoom, 2:00pm-3:00pm
Office hours will end when no
students are present, and last no longer than 1 hr
Additional office hours will be arranged upon request
Course Description
In some
order: Radiation reaction, multipole radiation
fields, electrostatics and magnetostatics in
macroscopic media, electrodynamics in media. See
more details under the proposed chapters below.
Course
notes prepared by the instructor. If anyone wants to transfer them to LaTeX please get in touch with the instructor.
The link above is intended to have the collected lectures file. It should grow over time. Separate "chapters" will be posted first, below, and only from time to time combined into the collection above (so download individual chapters for most up to date notes).
Unit 1: Synchrotron Radiation.
Carryover form the end of PHYS 203A, from Fields from accelerated charges. Radiation from charges in circular motion; spectrum and agular distribution of intensity of radiation, periodic sources, Airy functions.
Unit2: Units.
Changing from SI
to Gaussian. ... And back.
Unit 3:
Radiation reaction and damping: classical
electron theory.
Classical
electron theory. Inconsistencies of classical
electrodynamics. Radiation reaction. Classical line
width.
Addendum to Unit 3: Self Field of Electron
Modern treatment of radiation reaction, preserving covariance.
Unit 4: Electrostatics
Review of electrostatics as an excuse to introduce multi-pole expansion and Spherical Harmonics. Boundary value problems: solve Laplace equation by separation of variables in Cartesian, Cylindrical and Spherical Coordinates. Multipole expansion: field ude to localized charge distribution. Localized charge in external fields.
Unit 5: Radiation Form Localized Sources
General expressions for radiation fields and differentail power distributions (spectral and angular). Types of sources. Long wavelength (non-relativistic) approximation and multipole expansion. Antennae.
Unit 6: Maxwell Equations in Media
Averaging out microscopic fields and current/charge densities. Constitutive relations, electric and magnetic susceptibility, permittivity, permeability. Energetics.
Unit 7:
Electrostatic energy. Capacitance. Methods for solving boundary value problems with conductors: method of images, variational method.
Unit 8: Electrostatics With Dielectrics
Boundary value problems with dielectrics.
Thermodynamics with dielectrics. Models of dielectrics, rarefied gases and dense materials, non-polar and polar molecules.
Unit 9: Frequency Dependent Response of Materials
General properties of susceptibility. Drude model of conductivity and general properties of frequency dependent conductivity. Dielectric response function; Garg's "propensity". Electromagnetic energy in material media. Electronic response model of Drude, Kramers and Lorentz. Anomalous dispersion, wave propagation in dispersive media and another look at phase velocity and group group velocity, and introduce energy velocity. (Magnetic)permeability and optical frequencies.
Unit 10: Quasistatic Phenomena In Conductors
Quasistatic Fields, and simplification of Maxwell Equations in conductors. Boundary conditions at conductors. Diffusion equation. Qualitative solutions. Infinite plane conductor.
Free Textbooks from Geisel
For course
textbook, go to Textbookabove. There are many texts on Electrodynamics. You can read for free some that can be downloaded or at least viewed on-line: go to the Roger on the UCSD library web page, and search for keyword "electrodynamics" or the like and select "Electronic materials." You must be on the UCSD network to access these materials.
Here are some, with comments.
Note: the comments were originally intended for my personal use, to recallremind me what's in each of them.
Kurt Lechner
Classical Electrodynamics A Modern Perspective
L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifshitz
The Classical Theory of Fields
Course of Theoretical Physics, Volume 2
J. David Jackson
Classical Electrodynamics
Francesco Lacava
Classical Electrodynamics:
From Image Charges to ... Monopoles
Melvin Schwartz
Principles of Electrodynamics
Masud Chaichian, Ioan Merches, Daniel Radu and Anca Tureanu
Electrodynamics An Intensive Course
Florian Scheck
Classical Field Theory On Electrodynamics, ... and Gravitation
Prem K. Kythe
Handbook of Conformal Mappings and Applications
Ursula van Rienen
Numerical Methods in Computational Electrodynamics
Gerd Baumann
Mathematica® for Theoretical Physics, vol2: Electrodynamics, ...
Our Amazing Team
The Instructor, Teaching Assistant, Grader, Administrative Support
Benjamin Grinstein
Distinguished Professor of Physics
Nathan Butcher
Graduate Student
Hong-Ye Hu
Graduate Student
Prof. Grinstein is a Theoretical Physicist. His main
research interests are in the areas of particle physics and cosmology. Learn more about his
recent work on his website.
Brian is a graduate student in Physics doing research in theoretical condensed matter. Dino is a graduate student in Physics whose main interest is in astronomy.
Contact The Team
Of course, students know how to contact "the team" anyway.
A truly modern approach. Book has three parts. First part is foundations: special relativity, field theory. Second one is applications, including waves, radiation, Liénard-Wiechert Fields, ultrarelativistic limit, Synchrotron radiation, Cerenkov radiation, even gravitational waves (!). Third one is not useful for course, but could be attractive to students, including such topics as Radiation Reaction, Renormalization and p-branes!
L.D. Landau and E.M. Lifshitz;
translated from the Russian by Morton Hamermesh. Pergamon
Press. Format avilable: pdf (other formats don't seem to download,
even if listed). Very comprehensive, both E&M (without continuous
media-- see other text in series "Electrodynamics of continuous media"
which is appropriate for 203B), and also General Relativity. Includes
special relativity, field theory, waves, propagation of light,
radiation.
Classical Electrodynamics
(Graduate Texts in Contemporary Physics) J. David Jackson
Designed as a masters level text, it quickly reviews Maxwell's
equations and launches into grad level material, at a level somewhat
above UD and below our PhD course. Probably good for students
struggling with Jackson or Landau. Eclectic choice of topics, could be
a fun read; eg, last three chapters are “The Feynman Paradox”, “Test
of Coulomb's Law and The mass of the Photon” and “Magnetic
Monopoles”. Quite a bit of relativity and field theory, and resonant
cavity, but no radiation, at all.
Being a Dover book, it is probably affordable to purchase.
This seems to be at a level between UD and grad. Very well written, thoughtful. Does cover waves, scattering, radiation (Liénard-Wiechert), dipole radiation, waveguides and cavities. A useful text for side-reading, and could be helpful to students struggling with the terser Jackson and Landau.
Electrodynamics. An Intensive Course
Masud Chaichian, Ioan Merches, Daniel Radu and Anca Tureanu
Nice appendix on math support. Extensive discussion (maybe too much)
of relativity. Get's quickly to EM waves and then does include quite a
bit. Also has magnetofluid dynamics. Includes an intro to GR as last
chapter.
Classical Field Theory. On Electrodynamics, Non-Aberlian Gauge
Theories and Gravitation.
Chapters 2 and 3 are in line with the treatment of Lorentz invariance and filed theoretic approach
in this course. Chapter 4 on applications (largely EM waves), together with chapters 1 (basics
of Maxwells equations barely touching on static situations) is nice done but insufficient for
the course. Additional chapters on non-abelian gauge theories and gravitation are irrelevant to
this course.
