Related papers: The momentum of an electromagnetic wave inside a d…
After more than a century of debate, there remains continuing discomfort over what is the correct expression for the electromagnetic momentum in a dielectric medium. This is the so-called the Minkowski-Abraham controversy. We show that…
In this paper I compare the Abraham and the Minkowski forms for the momentum pertaining to an electromagnetic wave inside a dielectric or a magnetic material. The discussion is based on a careful treatment of the surface charges and…
We discuss the electromagnetic energy-momentum distribution and the mechanical forces of the electromagnetic field in material media. There is a long-standing controversy on these notions. The Minkowski and the Abraham energy-momentum…
We present an elementary discussion of the momentum transferred by an electromagnetic wave propagating in a dispersive medium. Our analysis is based on Minkowski's electromagnetic momentum density which have been recently seen to be…
Almost a hundred years ago, two different expressions were proposed for the energy--momentum tensor of an electromagnetic wave in a dielectric. Minkowski's tensor predicted an increase in the linear momentum of the wave on entering a…
We present an elementary discussion of the momentum transferred to a conducting sheet by an electromagnetic wave propagating in a polarizable medium. We show that conservation of momentum is consistent with Minkowski's expression for the…
The momentum of light in dielectric media has been a century-long controversy that continues to attract significant interest. In a linear dielectric medium with refractive index n, the momentum is predicted to be smaller by a factor of n…
When the effects of dispersion are included, neither the Abraham nor the Minkowski expression for electromagnetic momentum in a dielectric medium gives the correct recoil momentum for absorbers or emitters of radiation. The total momentum…
We determine the invariant expression of the force density that the electromagnetic field exerts on dipolar matter and construct the non-symmetric energy-momentum tensor of the electromagnetic field in matter which is consistent with that…
Electromagnetic waves carry the Abraham momentum, whose density is given by p_EM = S(r,t)/c^2. Here S(r,t) = E(r,t)\timesH(r,t) is the Poynting vector at point r in space and instant t in time, E and H are the local electromagnetic fields,…
We find that the energy-dynamic tensor of electromagnetic wave in medium defined by Lagrange density is very similar to that of ordinary fluid, and density and pressure can be defined similarly. The pressure here is different from the…
According to the scientific literature, the momentum of a photon in a simple linear dielectric is either $\hbar\omega/(nc)$ or $n\hbar\omega/c$ with a unit vector ${\bf \hat e}_k$ in the direction of propagation. These momentums are…
Recent years have witnessed a number of beautiful experiments in radiation optics. Our purpose with this mini-review is to highlight some developments of radiation pressure physics in general, and thereafter to focus on the importance of…
We find that the energy-momentum tensor of electromagnetic waves in media is very similar to that of ordinary fluids, and concepts such as density, pressure, and energy transfer rate can be similarly defined. On this basis, we conducted a…
We derive an exact expression for the radiation pressure of a quasi- monochromatic plane wave incident from the free space onto the flat surface of a semi-infinite dielectric medium. In order to account for the total optical momentum…
The Abraham--Minkowski controversy refers to a long-standing inability to adequately address certain issues involving the conservation of the momentum of an electromagnetic field in a linear dielectric medium. We apply the usual assumption…
The momentum of light inside ponderable media has an electromagnetic part and a mechanical part. The local and instantaneous density of the electromagnetic part of the momentum is given by the Poynting vector divided by the square of the…
We defend a natural division of the energy density, energy flux and momentum density of electromagnetic waves in linear media in electromagnetic and material parts. In this division, the electromagnetic part of these quantities have the…
The force of electromagnetic radiation on a dielectric medium may be derived by a direct application of the Lorentz law of classical electrodynamics. While the light's electric field acts upon the (induced) bound charges in the medium, its…
We use an extended version of electrodynamics, which admits the existence of magnetic charges and currents, to discuss how different models for electric and magnetic dipoles do or do not carry hidden momentum under the influence of external…