Classical Electrodynamics

This book presents an overview of Classical Electrodynamics. Its second edition includes new chapters that pick up where the material from the first edition left off. The image method introduced in the first edition is expanded to series of images, using simple examples like a point charge or a charged wire between two grounded plates, as well as more relevant examples such as two charged conducting spheres and the force between them. The topic of complex functions is broadened with the introduction of conformal mapping. One new chapter introduces the method of separation of variables, including in Cartesian coordinates (box with sides at fixed voltages), in spherical coordinates (dielectric and conducting sphere, potential of a charged ring), in cylindrical coordinates (conducting wedge, cylinder in uniform field). It also presents the potentials and the fields for a point charge in motion, radiation by a point charge and by a dipole, radiation reaction. Two other chapters present updated lessons on the mass of the photon and search for monopoles. Examples and/or solvable problems are provided throughout.

Table of Contents

1 Classical electrodynamics: a short review

2 Multipole expansion of the electrostatic potential

3 The method of image charges

4 Image charges in dielectrics

5 Series of image charges

6 Functions of complex variables and electrostatics

7 Conformal mapping in electrostatics

8 Separation of variables in Laplace equation

9 Relativistic transformation of E and B fields

10 Relativistic covariance of electrodynamics

11 Energy and momentum of the electromagnetic field

12 The Feynman paradox

13 The resonant cavity

14 Fields and radiation

15 Test of the Coulomb’s law and limits on the mass of the photon

16 Magnetic monopoles

About the Author

Francesco Lacava is Associate Professor of Experimental Physics at the “Sapienza” University of Rome, Italy. His research interests include the physics of hadron colliders and the development of detectors for particle physics. Over the past three decades, he has contributed to the ATLAS Experiment at LHC, one of the two experiments that observed the Higgs boson in 2012. In recent years, he worked on the upgrade of the muon tracking detectors of the experiment. He previously participated in the UA1 Experiment at the CERN proton-antiproton collider, which discovered the W and Z bosons in 1983. He is the author or co-author of more than 1000 papers on high-energy particle physics and detectors.