English

Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Formulation of Classical Electrodynamics without Potentials

Classical Physics 2021-01-26 v1 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology

Abstract

In the standard Lagrangian and Hamiltonian approach to Maxwell's theory the potentials AμA^{\mu} are taken as the dynamical variables. In this paper I take the electric field E\vec{E} and the magnetic field B\vec{B} as the the dynamical variables. I find a Lagrangian that gives the dynamical Maxwell equations and include the constraint equations by using Lagrange multipliers. In passing to the Hamiltonian one finds that the canonical momenta ΠE\vec{\Pi}_E and ΠB\vec{\Pi}_B are constrained giving 6 second class constraints at each point in space. Gauss's law and B=0\vec{\nabla}\cdot\vec{B}=0 can than be added in as additional constraints. There are now 8 second class constraints, leaving 4 phase space degrees of freedom. The Dirac bracket is then introduced and is calculated for the field variables and their conjugate momenta.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2101.10118,
  title  = {Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Formulation of Classical Electrodynamics without Potentials},
  author = {Dan N. Vollick},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2101.10118},
  year   = {2021}
}