On rational electromagnetic fields

authored by

Kaushlendra Kumar, Olaf Lechtenfeld

Abstract

We employ a recently developed method for constructing rational electromagnetic field configurations in Minkowski space to investigate several properties of these source-free finite-action Maxwell (“knot”) solutions. The construction takes place on the Penrose diagram but uses features of de Sitter space, in particular its isometry group. This admits a classification of all knot solutions in terms of S³ harmonics, labeled by a spin 2j∈N₀, which in fact provides a complete “knot basis” of finite-action Maxwell fields. We display a j=1 example, compute the energy for arbitrary spin-j configurations, derive a linear relation between spin and helicity and characterize the subspace of null fields. Finally, we present an expression for the electromagnetic flux at null infinity and demonstrate its equality with the total energy.

Organisation(s)

Institut für Theoretische Physik
Riemann Center for Geometry and Physics

Type

Artikel

Journal

Physics Letters, Section A: General, Atomic and Solid State Physics

Volume

384

ISSN

0375-9601

Publication date

17.08.2020

Publication status

Veröffentlicht

Peer reviewed

Yes

ASJC Scopus Sachgebiete

Physik und Astronomie (insg.)

Electronic version(s)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2002.01005 (Access: Offen)
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2020.126445 (Access: Geschlossen)