Energy—momentum tensor of the electromagnetic field in dispersive media
I.N. Toptygin,
K. Levina Peter the Great Saint-Petersburg Polytechnic University, ul. Polytechnicheskaya 29, St. Petersburg, 195251, Russian Federation
The relation is considered between the energy—momentum tensor of the electromagnetic
field and the group velocity of quasi-monochromatic waves in a nonabsorbing, isotropic, temporally and
spatially dispersive dielectric. It is shown that, in the absence of external charges and currents in the
dielectric, when the Abraham momentum density is used, there is no need to introduce the Abraham
force applied to matter for providing the fulfillment of the law of conservation of momentum. The
energy—momentum tensor proves to be symmetric and the Maxwell stress tensor is expressed either in
terms of the momentum density vector and group velocity or in terms of the energy density and group
velocity. The stress tensor and energy density strongly depend on the frequency and wave vector
derivatives from functions describing the electromagnetic properties of the medium (permittivity and
magnetic permittivity). The results are applicable both for ordinary and left-handed media and are
compared with the data obtained by other authors. The pressure produced by waves on the interface of
two media is calculated. It is shown that in ordinary and left-handed media, either the light pressure or
light attraction can appear depending on the parameters of media. The striction effect is taken into
account for liquid dielectrics.
Keywords: energy--momentum tensor, dispersive media, group velocity, light pressure, striction effect PACS:03.50.De, 41.20.−q, 77.22.−d (all) DOI:10.3367/UFNe.0186.201602c.0146 URL: https://ufn.ru/en/articles/2016/2/d/ Citation: Toptygin I N, Levina K "Energy—momentum tensor of the electromagnetic field in dispersive media" Phys. Usp.59 141–152 (2016)