INTRODUCTION TO RELATIVITY LECTURE 8

1 Interactions in Special Relativity

2 Electromagnetism
1 Interactions in special relativity
In Newtonian mechanics fundamental interactions are introduced

via a potential

L
Y Gigi VG
Promoting the first term to its relativistic form we
find
s
mcfate fat VG
Terybreeks Lorentz
invariance t
gives time
a special role
How can we promote the NR action to some relativistic invaria
action There are only two ways
i VG is the time component of some 4 vector field and

Au qt dx
M Ao q at q df

if Ao q VG this is what we need

ii We promote

s m
frat SE mfEjE F
Indeed
if we take off Ks NR limit we
get
SE mffa Idt z.FI at
 Further assuming as we obtain
Im
Sae mfat stem t m
fat t

I fat Et V m t precisely what we

wanted
An alternative and more useful form for Sa is to write
It 21m X
go
Sz mfrgadtort
This an clearly be made Lorentz invariant promoting it to

Ss mfrgmuklotudt
To summarize we are lead to consider two possibilities

Se
ff Aadt Au x dm
Sg mfrgmetandt
Se will be electromagnetism Sa will be
gravity
To distinguish the general metric
gap from the Minkoswi metric
we will denote the letter with
you
2 Electromagnetism
Let us study how Se gives rise to EM The Eo M are

Ex
o
2x
we add this constant for reason
p that will become deer
soon
with S
fat f mryapja.gs egg ye

Ex 21g X ef Ap X

Btr ZXm eApeAl

ftp.p
Choosing 7 7 proper time

AA teamAp X
ft f Pu
o

x
off elate edged

tea te te beaut MIAH

Fur field strenght
antisymmetric 6 compon
Thus off eff u

We know of an elementary force that depend on velocity

Lorentz force in EM get EterxB
since these are indices in artesian
pi eeiteeijkvj.pk coordinates
of 1123 we do not

disti guish
between upper and lower indices

This leads us to a tentative identification of the components

of Fmv

From us FEET
FEEL.EE I
t.EE

an
Fri
we have for the space components

If ftp.i ypi efiouotefiiu Iffio

efiivi
E
pietist L on Frei
Fij EijkBk

O 133 132
FMV ME
For the time component we instead have

Fa v e F

EÉIg fÉf
gg e Un e

in

IEEE
Le
off e ÉT which is the expression

for the power energy

changeper unit time

If all this construction is correct then the concepts of electric

and magnetic field are automatically unified in the EM field
in relativity and we already know from elementary physics that
this must be so To confirm the validity of the construction
we will now make the field An dynamical
Before that we observe that there is an invariance hidden in
Se Performing the transformation

An An 23 gauge transformation

we have
Ese
f 23 dm
for 25414 faff 5

Taking 3G to vanish for in the past and in the future

Ese o and Se is invariant

 At the level of EM

Fur In Av 2 An 2m Aut 25 2 Ant 23

Fav 2m23 225 Fu
everything is invariant the class of equivalence
An An 25
produce the same E and B fields
We now
givedynamics to Au The following observation will be
a

useful in nature EM fields obey the superposition principle This

means that their EM must be linear in Au and hence
S must be quadratic in Am As we saw Au is not
univocelly
defined because of gauge invariance hence AnAM cannot appear
although invariant We are thus left with objects constructed
with Fmv which is automatically
gauge invariant The
simplest such object is Fu Fu
The simplest action for the EM field is thus

Sem dh Fm FM

conventional
where Fu Fu is invariant and so is dk Notice that the
integral cannot be taken over de because in the pure EM
theory we have to particles and thus there is no proper time
to be computed
Exercise show that the other possible invariant term EMME Fa
is a 4 divergence 2km Using Gauss theorem show
that this term does not matter in the Eon and
can be discarded

The complete action

for a
charged particle in an EM field is

S mfrokadt 1folk Fm FM e
f dm AnG

We have already seen that varying the trajectory Xu of the

particle gives an equation that we have interpreted as

Lorentz force We are now going to
vary the other dynamical
variable present Am x and compute its EM

As a preliminary step we write

efdx Aa G remembering that XM trajectory we rename it

qr
or
off Ax g folkJoke 8h x
gallant

electric currents

folk x AnJM
This term is gauge invariant only if
folk AnJM folk An 2 5 Jr a folk 2551 0

I
by parts
 I
folk 27 o

IT O

gauge invariance current

conservation

We now
very the action with respect to An An Auteam
and we require a stationery action

S
folk 4112Av 2An 2mA TAM An T
t
Stds folk 1 Fav 2ndAv 2ndAn Fut 248A 2 8AM

Aut SAN
f
2 Fmv 2ndA
S
fax 4142ndAv FM SanJu

IS faux 2ndAv FM Sant

I
St
folk EAv Ju Fu dayJM

Is faux
TL
darlaff
 the Eon is a FM J
and B
What does this mean in terms of É
We recall that
E É E3
E
It gli Jeff
133 132
2 I FMV O

E
Ji Fi
O
o JO
IF
v

FEI p F É g one of
Maxwell
equations

V j 2 Foi 2 fit ji
JiEiskBk
FI Ji

TEEBk BxB
Ix E J Ft
our identification of Fur's components with E and B is
justified
But where the other two Maxwell equations They are embedded
are

in the definition of Fur Lar JrAn as not

any antisymm
tensor but as a tensor involving derivatives This means that
 Jp Fmv 2,2 Av 42 An
end contracting with EMM we obtain the identity

E 41 2 Fur 0 because the derivatives are symmetric

Exercise show that Edm 2 Fu o amounts to

F5 0
Fx É 221 0

This can equivalently be expressed as

ERM 2 Fur Mt Ed Me EMM IpFur

I
I 13
EMM IpFm 2 Fue a Fem 0

JpFur In Frp 2 Fy 0 BIANCHI IDENTITY

We have thus recovered EM as one

of the two possible

relativistically invariant interactions

At the end what is Au
From Fur AAv 2AM we obtain