Lagrangian and Hamiltonian Formulation of Classical Electrodynamics without Potentials
Abstract
In the standard Lagrangian and Hamiltonian approach to Maxwell's theory the potentials are taken as the dynamical variables. In this paper I take the electric field and the magnetic field 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 and are constrained giving 6 second class constraints at each point in space. Gauss's law and 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}
}