A Modern Introduction To Classical Electrodynamics

A Modern Introduction to Classical Electrodynamics is suitable for undergraduate students with some background knowledge of the subject and for graduate students, while more advanced topics make it a useful resource for PhD students and researchers. The book places much emphasis on the formal structure of the theory; beginning with Maxwell's equations in the vacuum, it emphasises the central role of gauge invariance and Special Relativity. After introductory chapters which include rederivations of elementary results of electrostatics and magnetostatics, and the multipole expansion, Special Relativity is introduced, and most of the subsequent derivations are performed using covariant formalism and gauge potentials, allowing for greater conceptual and technical clarity compared to more traditional treatments. The second part of the book covers electrodynamics in material media. This includes Maxwell's equations in material media, frequency dependent response of materials and Kramers-Kronig relations, electromagnetic waves in materials, and scattering of electromagnetic radiation. Finally, the text also includes advanced topics, such as the field-theoretical treatment of classical electrodynamics as a modern treatment of radiation reaction. These parts are meant for the advanced reader and are clearly marked, and can be skipped without loss of continuity.

A Modern Introduction to Classical Electrodynamics is suitable for undergraduate students with some background knowledge of the subject and for graduate students, while more advanced topics make it a useful resource for PhD students and researchers. The book places much emphasis on the formal structure of the theory; beginning with Maxwell's equations in the vacuum, it emphasises the central role of gauge invariance and Special Relativity. After introductory chapters which include rederivations of elementary results of electrostatics and magnetostatics, and the multipole expansion, Special Relativity is introduced, and most of the subsequent derivations are performed using covariant formalism and gauge potentials, allowing for greater conceptual and technical clarity compared to more traditional treatments. The second part of the book covers electrodynamics in material media. This includes Maxwell's equations in material media, frequency dependent response of materials and Kramers-Kronig relations, electromagnetic waves in materials, and scattering of electromagnetic radiation. Finally, the text also includes advanced topics, such as the field-theoretical treatment of classical electrodynamics as a modern treatment of radiation reaction. These parts are meant for the advanced reader and are clearly marked, and can be skipped without loss of continuity.

An engaging writing style and a strong focus on the physics make this graduate-level textbook a must-have for electromagnetism students.

Problems after each chapter

This book is an excellent text for undergraduates majoring in physics and engineering. The style pedagogical with clear and concise illustration followed by practise problems at the end of each chapter.

This book addresses the theoretical foundations and the main physical consequences of electromagnetic interaction, generally considered to be one of the four fundamental interactions in nature, in a mathematically rigorous yet straightforward way. The major focus is on the unifying features shared by classical electrodynamics and all other fundamental relativistic classical field theories. The book presents a balanced blend of derivations of phenomenological predictions from first principles on the one hand, and concrete applications on the other. Further, it highlights the internal inconsistencies of classical electrodynamics, and addresses and resolves often-ignored critical issues, such as the dynamics of massless charged particles, the infinite energy of the electromagnetic field, and the limits of the Green’s function method. Presenting a rich, multilayered, and critical exposition on the electromagnetic paradigm underlying the whole Universe, the book offers a valuable resource for researchers and graduate students in theoretical physics alike.

This is a re-issued and affordable printing of the widely used undergraduate electrodynamics textbook.