volume | PIER Journals

Abstract

Minkowski's theory is regarded as the classical approach to describing the electromagnetism of uniformly moving objects by elegantly utilizing the format-invariance of Maxwell's equations in inertial reference frames under Lorentz transformations. However, in practice, we often encounter medium with boundaries that accelerate, such as a rotating dielectric disc or a magnetic object. To fully describe the electromagnetic behavior of such a system, we developed Maxwell's equations for a mechano-driven medium system (MEs-f-MDMS). This study expands Minkowski's approach to derive the constitutive equations and boundary conditions for MEs-f-MDMS under the low-speed approximation (v << c), based on which the equations can be properly solved to describe engineering electromagnetism, by considering the coupling among the electric field, magnetic field, and mechanical force field. In practice, mechanical action is not merely passive motion through space but an active source of electromagnetic generation and modulation of electromagnetic fields. Our theory makes it possible to treat electrodynamics by including medium deformation, strain gradients, rotational dynamics, and interfacial contact processes in the full calculation.

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Prof. Zhong Lin Wang