Physics 209 Homepage

Classical Electrodynamics

General [jump to this Week's syllabus]

Lectures

Place: 3 LeConte Hall
Time: Mondays 9-10am, Wednesdays 9-10am, Fridays 9-10am
Instructor: Ori Ganor
EMail: origa@socrates.berkeley.edu
Office hours: Thursdays 2pm-4pm, Birge 445

Discussions

Time and Place: Tuesdays, 2-3pm, 81 Evans
Time and Place: Thursdays, 1-2pm, 75 EVans
Instructor: Dmitriy Vasilyuk
EMail:
Office hours: Fridays, 1:30-2:30pm
Office: 254 LeConte

Text Book

J.D. Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics, 3rd Edition,
John Wiley & Sons.

Homework

To be collected weekly in the discussion section.

Midterm

Cancelled!.

Final

Will be during the week of 12/13-12/20. Exact time will be announced later.

Tentative Course Plan

#	Date	Lecture topic	Homework	Solution	Ref.
Introduction
1a	08/29	Maxwell's equations	-	-	§I
Basic Techniques
1b	08/31	Electrostatics	-	-	§2, §3
1c	09/02	electric dipoles	-	-	§5
-	09/05	Labor Day Holiday
2a	09/07	Electrostatics II	-	-	§2
2b	09/09	Electrostatics III	-	-	§2
2c	09/12	Special functions	-	-	§3
3a	09/14	Legendre polynomials	-	-	§3
3b	09/16	Multipole expansion	-	-	§3
3c	09/19	Magnetostatics	-	-	§4
4a	09/21	Magnetic dipoles	-	-	§4
4b	09/23	Magnetic energy; Magnetic permeablility	-	-	§4
4c	09/26	Magnetic shielding; Superconductors	-	-	§4
5a	09/28	Magnetic multipole expansion	-	-	§9.7
5b	09/30	Vector spherical harmonics	-	-	§9.7
5c	10/03	Wave equation	-	-	§6
Special Relativity
6a	10/05	Lorentz transformations	-	-	§11
6b	10/07	Tensors	-	-	§11
6c	10/10	Worldlines	-	-	§11
7a	10/12	The Lorentz group	-	-	§11
7b	10/14	Generators of the Lorentz algebra	-	-	§11
7c	10/17	The electromagnetic field tensor	-	-	§11
8a	10/19	Guest Lecture: Particle in an electromagnetic field	-	-	§12.5
8b	10/21	Thomas precession	-	-	§11.8
8c	10/24	The BMT equation	-	-	§11.8
Electromagnetic waves and optics
9a	10/26	Plane waves	-	-	§7
9b	10/28	Skin depth	-	-	§8.1
9c	10/31	Wave Guides	-	-	§8
10a	11/02	Wave Guides	-	-	§8
10b	11/04	Transmitting antennas	-	-	§9.4
10c	11/07	Receiving antennas	-	-	-
11a	11/09	Scattering and Diffraction	-	-	§10
-	11/11	Veterans Day Holiday
11b	11/14	Attenuation	-	-	§7
Interaction of particles and fields
11c	11/16	Radiation by accelerating charges	-	-	§14.1
12a	11/18	Synchrotron radiation	-	-	§14.6
12b	11/21	Back reaction on the charge	-	-	§16
12c	11/23	Cherenkov radiation	-	-	§13.4
-	11/24-25	Thanksgiving Holiday
13a	11/28	Energy loss of fast charged particles in matter	-	-	§15
Advanced topics
13b	11/30	Multipole fields and radiation	-	-	§9
13c	12/02	Multipole fields and radiation	-	-	§9
14a	12/05	Kramers Kronig relations	-	-	§7.10
14b	12/07	Magnetohydrodynamics	-	-	§7
14c	12/09	Action principle for electrodynamics	-	-	§9

(The above course outline is subject to change.)
References refer to the text book.

Tools

Instructions for printing more than one page per sheet

Windows XP:
1. (Select from main menu as usual) Print
2. (Select tab, if not already selected) General
3. (Click button) Preferences
4. (Select tab, if not already selected) Layout
5. In the drop-down box titled Pages per sheet, pick the desired number (1,2,4,6,9, or 16).
UNIX:
1. (Select from main menu as usual) Print ...
2. Replace the lpr command with: mpage -4 (will produce 4 pages per sheet).
If that doesn't work, try this:
pdf2ps filename.pdf - | psnup -4 | lpr

Details of lectures

Introduction

Maxwell's equations

Divergence theorem; Stokes's theorem; Electric field; Magnetic field; Electric permittivity; magnetic permeability; Charge conservation; Differential and integral form of Maxwell's equations; Lorentz force; Conductivity; Conversion from Gaussian to SI units; Order of magnitudes for various electric and magnetic fields in nature; Poynting vector; Conservation of energy and momentum;

Basic Techniques

Electrostatics

Scalar pontential; Poisson and Laplace equations; Green's theorem; Perfect conductors; Boundary Dirichlet and Neumann boundary conditions;

electric dipoles

Field and potential of an electric dipole; Energy, force and torque on a dipole in an electric field; Continuous distribution of electric dipoles; Dielectrics; ELectric field E and electric displacement D; Maxwell's equations in dielectric media; Electric permittivity;

Electrostatics II

Ferroelectric materials; Green functions;

Electrostatics III

More on Green functions; Dirichlet boundary conditions; Method of Inversion; Grounded conducting ball in a uniform electric field; Point charge near a conducting sphere.

Special functions

Capacitance; Cylindrical coordinates; Bessel functions;

Legendre polynomials

Neumann and Hankel functions; Modified Bessel functions; Legendre polynomials; Orthonormal series; Conducting ball in a uniform electric field;

Multipole expansion

Associated Legendre polynomials; Spherical harmonics; Multipole expansion in electrostatics; Corners;

Magnetostatics

Cavities and sharp needles; Hypergeometric functions; Bio-Savart law for magnetostatics; Vector potential; Gauge invariance;

Magnetic dipoles

Coulomb gauge; Derivation of Bio-Savart law for magnetostatics; Field of a magnetic dipole; Force and torque on a magnetic dipole in an external magnetic field; Continuous distribution of magnetic dipoles; Magnetic induction B and magnetic field H;