Course structure
The course will be given during two 3 week periods in the first and second quarters, the course has 24 lectures and 6 tutorial.
Tutorials:
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Tutorials will include a computational component which will be compatible with the material covered in the Computational Physics module.
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Specific issues:
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Maxwell Stress Tensor (Pieter Meintjies)
Outline:
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Vectors and Tensors
Gradient, Divergence, The Laplacian, Curl
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Time-Independent Maxwell's Equations
The Electric Field and Coulomb's law, The electric scalar potential, Electric Flux Density, Gauss' law, Poisson's equation, Magnetic Flux Density, Ampère's Law, Magnetic Field Strength, Magnetostatics, magnetic dipole, diamagnetism and paramagnetism, Helmholtz's theorem, The Lorentz Force, Movement of Charged Particles in a Magnetic Field, The Magnetic Vector Potential, The Biot-Savart law. Effects of dielectric and magnetic media.
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Time-Dependent Maxwell's Equations
The Displacement Current, Ampère's Law revisited, Faraday's Law, The magnetic vector potential, Integral form and point forms of Maxwell's equations, Gauge transformation and Invariance.
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Electromagnetic Waves
The Wave equation, Plane waves, Green's functions, Phase and Group velocity, Propagation in a dielectric medium, Propagation in a conductor, Propagation in an ionized medium, Reflection at a boundary, Polarisation, Polarisation ellipse, Linear, Circular & Elliptical polarisation, Partial Polarization & Stokes parameters, Faraday rotation, Whistlers.
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Electromagnetic energy and momentum
Poynting flux, Energy conservation, Electromagnetic momentum, Maxwell Stress Tensor.
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Radiative Processes
Retarded potentials and fields, Electric and magnetic fields of a moving charged particle, constant velocity, accelerating, Larmor's Formula, Thomson Scattering, Blackbody Radiation, Bremsstrahlung, Cyclotron Radiation, Synchrotron Radiation, Čerenkov Radiation (superficial).
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Antennas
The Hertzian dipole, Electric dipole radiation, Radiation Resistance, Directivity and beam width, Antenna Gain, Antenna Arrays.
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Waveguides
Modes in parallel plate and rectangular waveguides, Cutoff frequencies, Wave impedances, Phase and Group velocity in waveguides.
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Relativity and Electromagnetism
The relativity principle, The Lorentz transformation, Transformation of velocities, Relativistic beaming of radiation, 4-velocity and 4-acceleration, The current density 4-vector, The potential 4-vector.