Lorenz Gauge Article Index for
Lorenz
Website Links For
Lorenz
 

Information About

Lorenz Gauge





DESCRIPTION

In Electromagnetism , the Lorenz gauge condition is a general Method of Calculation of Time-dependent Electromagnetic Field s in which Retarded Potential s are introduced. The condition is a Gauge Fixing in which,

:\partial_{a}A^a = A^a{}_{,a}=0

where A^a is the Four-potential , the comma denotes a Partial Differentiation and the repeated index indicates that the Einstein Summation Convention is being used. This gauge has the advantage of being Lorentz Invariant . It still leaves some residual gauge degrees of freedom, but they propagate freely at the speed of light, so they are insignificant.

In ordinary vector notation, this can also be written as the condition :

:
abla\cdot{\mathbf A} + rac{1}{c^2} rac{\partial\phi}{\partial t}=0.

where A is the Magnetic Vector Potential and φ is the Electric Potential ; see also Gauge Fixing .


HISTORY

When originally published, Lorenz' work was not received well by James Clerk Maxwell (primarily because of his own labors over the electric and magnetic fields). Lorenz' work was the first Symmetrizing shortening of Maxwell's equations after Maxwell himself published his 1865 paper. In 1888 , retarded potentials came into general use after Heinrich Rudolf Hertz ' experiments on Electromagnetic Wave s. In 1895 , a further boost to the theory of retarded potentials came after J. J. Thomson 's interpretation of data for Electron s (after which investigation into Electrical Phenomena changed from time-dependent Electric Charge and Electric Current distributions over to moving Point Charge s).


SEE ALSO



EXTERNAL ARTICLES, REFERENCES, AND FURTHER READING

;General