Classical Mechanics

Homework 7
(due 15:30, November 3, 2020)

1. The Principle of Relativity tells that if a physics law is known in one

inertial frame, it is known in other inertial frames. Coulomb’s law is
about how static charges generate electric fields. If the charges are
moving, they would also generate magnetic fields, which is Ampere’s
law. Therefore, Ampere’s law is simply Coulomb’s law in a different
inertial frame. In other words, we should be able to obtain Ampere’s
law (including the term of displacement current) from Coulomb’s law
based on the Principle of Relativity. Discuss how to obtain Ampere’s
law from Coulomb’s law in special relativity.

2. Consider a charge q moving along a path xµq (τ ) in spacetime, where τ

is the proper time of the charge. Show that the 4-current J α corre-
sponding to this charge can be expressed as
Z
Jα = c q δ 4 (xµ − xµq (τ )) U α dτ , (1)

where U α is the 4-velocity of the charge, and δ 4 (xβ ) is the 4-D delta
function.

3. Using equation (1) to show that in the Lagrangian, the interaction term
R
between charges and fields, − (q/c)Aα U α dτ , can be expressed as
Z Z
q 1
− Aα U α dτ = − Aα J α d4 xµ (2)
c c2

4. Show that
ǫαβµν Fαβ Fµν = 4(ǫαβµν Aβ Aν ,µ ),α (3)