Electromagnetic Processes in Dispersive Media

This is an advanced text on electromagnetic theory.

D. B. Melrose (Author), R. C. McPhedran (Author)

9780521018487, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 22 August 2005

432 pages, 39 b/w illus. 3 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.6 cm, 0.654 kg

'I believe that it will produce a very positive reaction … and attract them into adopting it for classroom use and as a reference.' Optics and Photonics News

This is an advanced text on electromagnetic theory, presenting a systematic discussion of electromagnetic waves and radiation processes in a wide variety of media. The treatment, taken from the field of plasma physics, is based on the dielectric tensor, and this permits the discussion of media outside the scope of the usual approach adopted in most textbooks on electromagnetism. The approach taken also has notable advantages when applied to the conventional emission processes of electromagnetic theory. The authors have thus unified the approaches used in plasma physics and astrophysics on the one hand, and in optics on the other. The book has been written clearly and pedagogically, and will be therefore of value to senior undergraduates, graduate students, lecturers and researchers. Students will find the exercises provided at the end of each chapter particularly useful.

Part I. Electromagnetic Fields in Vacuo: 1. Electromagnetic fields
2. Cartesian tensors
3. The stress tensor and multipole moments
4. Fourier transforms
5. Greens functions
Part II. The Electromagnetic Responses of Media: 6. The response of a medium
7. General properties of response tensors
8. Analytic properties of response functions
9. Response tensors for some idealized media
10. Response tensors for plasmas
Part III. Wave Properties: 11. Dispersion relations and polarization vectors
12. Waves in dielectrics and anisotropic crystals
13. Waves in plasmas
14. The polarization of transverse waves
15. Energetics and damping of waves
Part IV. Theory of Emission Processes: 16. The emission formula
17. Emission by multipoles
18. The Larmor formula
19. Alternative treatment of emission processes
Part V. Specific Emission Processes: 20. Cerenkov emission
21. Bremsstrahlung
22. Formal theory of gyromagnetic emission
23. Gyroemission by mildly relativistic electrons
24. Synchrotron emission
25. Scattering of waves by particles
26. Nonlinear emission processes
Bibliographic notes
Glossary of symbols
Index.

Subject Areas: Astrophysics [PHVB], Electricity, electromagnetism & magnetism [PHK], Optical physics [PHJ], Plasma physics [PHFP]