The sphere in this post is the set of points x21+x22+x23+x24=R2. It is called a 3-sphere, the radius is R. I use the following normalization for the Maxwell action S=−14∫d5x√|g|FμνFμν+∫d5x√|g|jμAμ
with g the determinant of the metric, jμ the source and F the electromagnetic field
F=12Fμνdxμdxν=dA
Digression about electromagnetic fields in higher dimensions. In 3+1 dimensions, electromagnetic theory is usually described with an electric field →E and a magnetic field →B. When one does relativistic calculations, one combines →E and →B in an anti-symmetric 4×4 matrix Fμν, called the electromagnetic field tensor. This sounds more difficult than it is: just put the field →E in the first column of Fμν, and sprinkle the components of →B in the 3×3 block in the bottom right of Fμν.
In 4 + 1 dimensions, the natural place to start building an electromagnetic theory is a 5×5 matrix Fμν; if one decomposes this in electric and magnetic components, the electric field is still a vector Ei (with four components now), but the magnetic field is not a vector anymore, but a 4×4 anti-symmetric matrix Bij. This is again easy to see: the electric field can be found in the first column of Fμν, the magnetic field Bij is the 4×4 matrix in the lower bottom right corner of Fμν.
I parametrize the space R4 as x1=rsinθ cosϕx2=rsinθ sinϕx3=rcosθ cosψx4=rcosθ sinψ
In these coordinates (they are known as Hopf coordinates), the metric in 4+1 dimensions is
ds2=−dt2+dr2+r2dθ2+r2sin2θdϕ2+r2cos2θdψ2
Digression about rotation in higher dimensions. In three (space) dimensions, a rotation is specified by an angular velocity vector; this is a (pseudo) vector which points along the axis of rotation and has length equal to the angular frequency. This does not work in four dimensions: after one fixes an axis, there would still be three dimensions left over for the body to move in; leaving too much freedom to define the rotation. Therefore, in four (and higher) dimensions, rotation is specified by an anti-symmetric matrix, or, equivalently, by specifying planes and angular frequencies in those planes. Notice that one could have chosen to specify rotations in three dimensions with an anti-symmetric 3×3 matrix as well; this is usually not done.
I let the sphere rotate in the x1,x2 plane with angular frequency ω1 and in the x3,x4 plane with angular frequency ω2. The current j is thus j=σδ(r−R)(∂t+ω1∂ϕ+ω2∂ψ)
with σ the charge density on the sphere.
Maxwell's equations are
1√|g|∂ν(√|g|Fμν)=jμ
I use as ansatz for the electromagnetic potential
A=V(r)dt+h(r)(ω1sin2θdϕ+ω2cos2θdψ)
The equations (2) are then easily solved and give for r≤R
V(r)=−σR2andh(r)=σR4r2
and for r≥R
V(r)=−σR32r2andh(r)=σR54r2
Observations
- For r<R
A=−σR2dt+σR4r2(ω1sin2θdϕ+ω2cos2θdψ)and thus F=dA=σR4(ω1d(r2sin2θ)dϕ+ω2d(r2cos2θ)dψ)With a bit of calculation, one sees that this is equal to F=σR2(ω1dx1dx2+ω2dx3dx4)Hence, inside the sphere the electric field is zero, and the magnetic field is homogeneous and proportional to the rotation matrix ω1dx1dx2+ω2dx3dx4. Both of these properties are exactly as in 3+1 dimensions, see Griffiths, example 5.11
- For r>R the electric potential V is proportional to 1/r2. This is as expected: in D space dimensions, the electric potential V is proportional to 1/rD−2
No comments:
Post a Comment