Phys 612, Classical Electrodynamics, Fall 2010


  • This course is being offered to PhD students at IISER Pune. It is being taught by Dr Prasad Subramanian and Dr Apratim Chatterji.

    The outline of the course is as follows:

    Electrostatics: boundary value problems, Green's functions, Laplace equation and methods of solution in rectangular, cylindrical and spherical coordinates. Basics of multipole expansion
    (Chapters 1, 2 and 4 of Jackson; chapters 2 and 3 of Griffiths)

    Magnetostatics: Basics of vector potential, magnetic induction, forces and torques on current elements
    (parts of Chapter 5 of Jackson, chapter 5 of Griffiths)

    Maxwell's equations for electrodynamics, gauges (Coulomb and Lorentz), retarded potentials, Jefimenko's equations
    (parts of Chapter 6 of Jackson, Chapters 9 and 10 of Griffiths)

    Wave propagation: polarization, dispersion, concept of group velocity, Kramers-Kronig relations
    (parts of Chapter 7 of Jackson)

    Basics of waveguides and resonant cavities: normal modes in waveguides and cavities, cavity Q
    (parts of Chapter 8 of Jackson, parts of Chapter 9 of Griffiths)

    Basics of tensor calculus, the covariant formulation of electrodynamics, Maxwell's equations in covariant form. Radiation from a moving point charge: the Lienard-Wiechert potentials, fields from a moving point charge
    (Chapter 1, parts of Chapter 3, 4 and 8 of Landau & Lifshitz; Chapters 10 and 12 of Griffiths; Chapters 3 and 4 of Rybicki & Lightman)

    The texts that will be useful are:

    An Introduction to Electrodynamics, Griffiths Prentice Hall India)

    Classical Electrodynamics, J. D. Jackson (Wiley Eastern, third edition).

    The Classical Theory of Fields, Landau & Lifshitz (Butterworth & Heinemann, fourth revised edition).

    The on-line Electrodynamics textbook by Bo Thide.

    Radiative Processes in Astrophysics, Rybicki & Lightman (Wiley Interscience)

    The grade will be based on the midterm (40%) and final (40%) exams (both open book/notes) and a project presentation (20%). Suggestions for the nature and scope of the project presentation will be put up here soon.