Tuesday, June 19, 2018

electromagnetism - Determining the Lorenz gauge condition



I'm having a bit of trouble understanding how the gauge condition is found.


Consider the potentials V and A and V and A so that
E=VAt=VAt B=×A=×A


The 2 sets of potentials are then related like this:


A=A+θ V=Vθt For a function θ.


The equations for the potentials are the following:


2Aεμ2At2=μJ+(.A+εμVt)


2Vεμ2Vt2=ρεt(.A+εμVt)


They can be decoupled by choosing the right potentials so that (.A+εμVt)=0


The above part is the theory in general.



Now to find the correct potentials where this is the case, let's say that this last part is true for potentials A and V, i.e.


.A+εμVt=0


Filling in the relations between the 2 sets of potentials from earlier gives:


.A+2θ+εμVtεμ2θt2=0


Yet my book tells me that this means that


2θεμ2θt2=0


I don't see why this is the case.



Answer



You've just run into the fact that the Lorenz gauge is only a partial gauge choice; it does not uniquely specify the vector and scalar potentials. The condition given on θ ensures that, if your original A,V obeyed the Lorenz condition, then the new potentials A,V will also obey the Lorenz condition.


Unique solutions for A,V arise only with additional conditions imposed (for instance, vanishing sufficiently fast at infinity).



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