Term: September 2017
Lecturer: Scott Oser
Class coordinates: Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays, 10:00-11:00 in Hennings 302
Office Hours: Mondays 11am-12pm, or by appointment
TA: Ryley Hill
Term:
September 2017
Lecturer: Scott
Oser
Class coordinates: Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays,
10:00-11:00 in Hennings 302
Office Hours: Mondays
11am-12pm, or by appointment
TA: Ryley
Hill
Topics covered: Electrostatics in vacuum and in media; analytic and numerical solution to electrostatics problems; magnetostatics; Maxwell's equations; electromagnetic wave propagation; special relativity; electromagnetic radiation
Prerequisites: Graduate standing or permission of instructor; strong background in undergraduate E&M
Required Textbook: Classical Electrodynamics, by J.D. Jackson (3rd edition)
Your grade will be determined by:
|
Homework |
40% |
|
Midterms (15% each) |
30% |
|
Final Exam |
30% |
Homework: There will be
approximately weekly homework assignments. You are welcome to discuss
problems informally with your classmates and to discuss general
approaches to problems. However, you must work the problems yourself,
and if you hand in obviously copied homework, you should expect a
mark of zero on that assignment, as well as a penalty to your final
grade. (Generally if you look at someone else's paper, or work
problems together checking every step, then you have crossed the
line. I reserve the right to refer egregious cases of inappropriate
collaboration to the university for investigation.) Assignments are
due in my office by the end of the day on which they are due.
Missed exams: There will be two in-class midterm exams. If you miss the exam with a legitimate excuse (proof of illness, family emergency, etc), see me to discuss make-up options. For the exams you can use one paper copy of Jackson, but no computer, calculator, or other notes.
Religious holidays: Students
are entitled to request an alternate test date if a scheduled test
date falls on one of their holy days. If you think this may apply to
you, please contact me as soon as possible to make an alternate
arrangement. Please don't put this off until the last minute---you
must give at least two week's notice.
FINAL
EXAM: We will have a take-home
final that will be distributed by email and posted here
on December 1, 2017 at 5pm, and
will be due in Prof. Oser's office by 10am on December 4, 2017.
Syllabus: A tentative
lecture schedule follows. It will almost certainly be adjusted as the
course proceeds.
|
Lecture |
Date |
Topics Covered |
Reading Material |
Assignment Due (tentative) |
|
1 |
9/6 |
First day of class: Introduction; Coulomb's law, scalar potentials; Dirac delta functions; perfect conductors |
I.1-I.6; 1.1-1.7 |
|
|
|
9/8 |
NO CLASS --- TA training day |
|
|
|
2 |
9/11 |
Green's Theorem; uniqueness of electrostatic solutions; energy and force; image charge on plane |
1.8-1.11; 2.1-2.2 |
|
|
9/13 |
NO CLASS -- instructor to be abducted by aliens |
|
|
|
|
3 |
9/15 |
Method of image charges for planar and spherical geometries; work functions |
2.2-2.7 |
|
|
4 |
9/18 |
Infinite series of image charges; orthogonal functions and series expansions; electric field of a time projection chamber field cage |
2.8-2.9 |
|
|
5 |
9/20 |
Series solutions in 2D; numerical solutions with relaxation methods |
2.10, 1.13 |
|
|
6 |
9/22 |
Laplace's solution in spherical coordinates, Legendre polynomials, spherical harmonics |
3-1.3-3, 3.5 |
|
|
7 |
9/25 |
Examples with series solutions in spherical coordinates; Bessel function expansions, cylindrical coordinates; CDMS iZIP detector field configuration |
3.5-3.8 |
|
|
8 |
9/27 |
Overflow class #1 on electrostatics: numerical solutions, more examples, stuff that didn't fit in the previous lectures |
1.13 |
|
|
9 |
9/29 |
Complicated piecewise series solution of boundary problems; multipole moments |
4.1-4.2 |
|
|
10 |
10/2 |
neutron EDM; Larmor precession; polarization; ponderable media; E and D |
4.2-4.4 |
|
|
11 |
10/4 |
Clausius-Mossotti relationship; molecular basis of polarization & its frequency dependence |
4.4-4.6 |
|
|
|
10/6 |
MIDTERM #1 |
|
|
|
|
10/9 |
NO CLASS - Thanksgiving |
|
|
|
12 |
10/11 |
Temperature dependence of dielectric constant; energy in dielectrics |
4.5-4.7 |
|
|
13 |
10/13 |
Introduction to magnetostatics; Biot-Savart law; vector potential; field near infinitely long wires |
5.1-5.2 |
|
|
14 |
10/16 |
vector potential; B and vector potential for current loop. Using the scalar potential to solve problems |
5.3-5.5 |
|
|
15 |
10/18 |
B and A for infinitely long solenoid; intro to magnetic dipoles |
5.6 |
|
|
16 |
10/20 |
More on magnetic dipoles; Einstein-de Haas effect; trapping ions and atoms with static fields |
5.6-5.7 |
|
|
17 |
10/23 |
paramagnetic and diamagnetic materials; Langevin diamagnetism; levitation of frogs; mathematical techniques for solving problems; B and H for cylindrical bar magnet |
5.8-5.10 |
|
|
18 |
10/25 |
Faraday's Law; energy of a magnetic field configuration; magnetic shielding; attractive force on iron object from magnet; Intro to Maxwell's equations |
5.10-5.12, 5.15-5.16; 6.1 |
|
|
19 |
10/27 |
Maxwell equations, scalar and vector potentials, gauge transformations; quasi-static approximations, eddy currents, stability of Earth's magnetic field |
5.18, 6.1-6.3 |
|
|
20 |
10/30 |
induction stoves; Green functions for the wave equation; retarded potential solutions; energy conservation, radiation, and the Poynting vector |
5.18; 6.4, 6.7 |
|
|
21 |
11/1 |
discrete symmetries of electronmagnetism; Magnetic monpoles; form of Maxwell's equations including magnetic charges/currents; Dirac quantization condition |
6.10-6.12 |
|
|
22 |
11/3 |
methods of detecting magnetic monopoles; the Cabrera experiment; ionization by monopoles; introduction to plane waves |
6.12, 13.1, 7.1-7.2 |
|
|
23 |
11/6 |
circular polarization; boundary conditions at interfaces; reflection and transmission for thin films |
7.1-7.3 |
|
|
24 |
11/8 |
plane waves in anisotropic materials; birefringence; plane waves in absorbing materials |
7.4-7.5 |
|
|
|
11/10 |
MIDTERM #2 |
|
|
|
|
11/13 |
NO CLASS - Remembrance Day |
|
|
|
25 |
11/15
|
absorption and transmission of plane waves; modelling the detector efficiencies of photosensors; introduction to radiation from a local oscillations source |
7.4-7.5, 9.1 |
|
|
26 |
11/17 |
radiation from electric and magnetic dipoles; pulsar radiation |
9.1-9.3 |
|
|
27 |
11/20 |
Postulates of special relativity; Lorentz boosts; time dilation |
11.1, 11.3, 11.4 |
|
|
28 |
11/22 |
Relativistic kinematics |
11.5 |
|
|
29 |
11/24 |
Covariant notation; mathematics of Lorentz transforms; field tensors; transformations of E and B under Lorentz boosts |
11.6-11.7, 11.9-11.10 |
|
|
30 |
11/27 |
Lagrangian formulation of electrodynamics |
12.1, 12.7 |
|
|
31 |
11/29 |
Derivation of electromagnetism from a U(1) symmetry LIKELY THE LAST DAY OF CLASS |
Class notes, plus look at "Quantum Field Theory", by Lewis Ryder, pp. 93-100 |
|
|
|
12/1 |
OVERFLOW - class will be cancelled unless we're running late |
|
Scott Oser (email me) November 20, 2017