Physics 6561: Classical Electrodynamics

Fall
2017

This impressive animation, by David Hathcock and Alen Senanian, shows the evolution of the electric field of a point charge that is initially at rest and then abruptly accelerated to half the speed of light. Streamlines show the direction of the field and the grayscale its magnitude. The velocity of the charge is shown on the right. 


Announcements

  • (11/19) See this movie of a spin-bazillion particle in a magnetic trap.

  • (11/10) Graded midterms were placed in mailboxes, in case you are still waiting to receive yours.

  • (11/10) These Fermi-Golden-Rule notes may be useful in assignment 11.

  • (11/4) There is a correction in part 2 of the second problem of assignment 9.

  • (10/19) There is a minor update of assignment 7.

  • (10/16) Because of the midterm, Amir will not hold office hours today.

  • (10/12) Graded homeworks, up to assignment 5, can be picked up at Amir's office (428 PSB) starting 2pm Friday.

  • (10/1) This update of the Bessel function notes might be useful for the last homework problem.

  • (9/19) Update on assignment 4, problem 3: no need to print photo, just email directly to Amir.

  • (9/18) Bessel function notes

  • (9/2) Amir will have office hours on Labor Day, 9/4.

  • Lecture video, 9/12
  • Lecture video, 9/19
  • Lecture video, 9/21


Term paper

Already claimed

  • Casimir force (effect)
  • Zeeman effect
  • Cherenkov effect
  • Aharonov-Bohm effect
  • Breakdown of the Rayleigh-Jeans Law (effect)
  • Kondo effect
  • Quantum Hall effect
  • Faraday rotation effect
  • Relativistic source beam-forming effect
  • Radiation reaction effect
  • Surface plasmon effect
  • Electron cloud effect
  • Abrikosov vortex effect
  • Hanbury Brown and Twiss effect
  • Einstein de Haas effect
  • Stark effect
  • Poynting-Robertson effect

Mid-term exam

  • Take-home exam
  • Available here 10/14
  • Due in class 10/17
  • Only class notes (no laptops, smartphones, etc.)

Tentative syllabus

  • Conformal transformations of the Laplace equation
  • Applications: electrostatic pendulum, gravity's rainbow, Rayleigh instability
  • Green's functions
  • Lagrangian, Hamiltonian, and quantum mechanics of the electromagnetic field
  • Application: Casimir force
  • Lorentz gauge, wave equation, Lienard-Wiechert potential
  • Lorentz invariant formalism, action principle, stress tensor
  • Motion in static magnetic fields
  • Applications: magnetic trap, synchrotron radiation, ionosphere

Course grade

  • homework: 60%
  • mid-term: 20%
  • term-paper: 20%

Office hours

  • Veit Elser, 426 PSB, Thursdays 1-3 PM
  • Amir Tajdini, 428 PSB, Mondays 5:30-7:30 PM