PHYC30016 Electrodynamics

2018 Assignment 2 Due: 5pm Friday 25 May

Submission instructions
 Answers to all questions must be submitted in hard copy directly to the lecturer or placed in the labelled
pigeonhole in the Physics Podium. Do not post under office doors or give to Reception.
 Your answers should be accompanied by a completed cover sheet.
 Penalties for late submission, in accordance with University policy, apply. If you are unable to submit by the due
date and need to request an extension because of serious and unforeseen circumstances outside your control,
complete the form available under ‘Assignments’ on the LMS and submit with the required documentation to the
lecturer.
Other information
 Answer all questions. All questions will be marked.
 Marks will be allocated for appropriate justification of answers.
 This assignment counts 10% toward your final result in this subject.
1. Consider two long straight parallel wires each carrying a constant current I in opposite directions and separated
by a distance d. Assume that the wires are in vacuum.
(a) Taking the currents to be in the ±z-direction, the wires to be located at x = ±d/2, find the Maxwell stress
tensor in the y-z plane.
(b) Explain why this information is sufficient to determine the force per unit length between the wires.
(c) Using the Maxwell stress tensor, find an expression for the force per unit length between the two wires.
(d) Discuss the magnitude and direction of your answer to (c) in the context of results found in your earlier
studies.
[12 marks]
2. According to the Drude oscillator model of the frequency dependence of the electrical permittivity of a metal, the
relative permittivity of a material as a function of (angular) frequency can be written in the form

where , and are constants. Assume the material is non-magnetic so that the relative permeability 1.
The permittivity of silver can be approximated using the following parameters (taken from Yang et al, Phys. Rev.
B 91, 235137 (2015)).
5.0
8.9 eV

γ 0.037 eV

In the questions below, you are asked to plot properties of the material. These should be performed on a computer
and printouts provided with your solutions. All plots should be appropriately labelled and the free-space
wavelength range should extend from 200 nm to 1200 nm. In parts (a) and (b), the real and imaginary parts of
the relevant quantities should be plotted either on separate axes of the same figure or in separate figures.
(a) Plot the real and imaginary parts of the relative permittivity of Ag.
(b) Plot the real and imaginary parts of the refractive index of Ag.
(c) Plot (using a computer), the magnitude of the (intensity) reflection coefficient if plane waves are
normally incident from air onto a semi-infinite block of Ag.
(d) Plot the phase of the amplitude reflection coefficient for the electric field relative to that of the incident
field for normally incident plane waves.
(e) Discuss your answers to (c) and (d). You should specifically discuss differences in the plots between
short and long wavelengths as well as any other features in your plots.
[12 marks]

ASSIGNMENT 2
3. Consider an infinite slab of thickness h, conductivity  and permeability 0, carrying a uniform current density j.
(a) Using Ampere’s law, or otherwise, find the magnetic field B as a function of position inside and outside
the slab.
(b) What is the magnitude and direction of the Poynting vector E × H at the surfaces of the slab?
(c) Show that the power flowing into the slab at the surfaces is equal to that dissipated in the slab.
[12 marks]

4. A point charge sits at the origin. A magnetic field, , fills all of space. Write down an expression
for the total electromagnetic field angular momentum, , in terms of and the magnetic flux, Φ through the
plane 0.
[12 marks]

5. In 1964 Daniel Lipkin defined a new conserved electromagnetic quantity1. He could not, however, identify its
physical significance and consequently referred to it as ‘zilch’. Zilch can be expressed as a pseudo-tensor in
covariant form:

where and are the electromagnetic field tensor and its dual tensor respectively.
(a) Write down the expression in terms of the electric ( )and magnetic field.
(b) Consider an electromagnetic plane wave travelling in vacuum in the +z-direction with electric field given
by:
, cos ,
where k is the wavenumber,  is the angular frequency and the constant amplitude of the wave.
(i) Describe the polarisation of this wave.
(ii) Calculate for this wave.

(c) Consider a different electromagnetic plane with electric field given by:
, cos sin .
(i) Describe the polarisation of this wave.
(ii) Calculate for this wave.

(d) Consider now a wave with electric field given by:

, cos sin ,
(i) How is the polarisation different from that considered in part (d) above?
(ii) Calculate for this wave.
(e) Based on your answers to (b), (c) and (d) above, discuss a possible interpretation of .

[12 marks]

1
DM Lipkin, Existence of a New Conservation Law in Electromagnetic Theory, Journal of Mathematical Physics, 5, 696 (1964)

ASSIGNMENT 2