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Electromagnetic Fields Explained

The electromagnetic field is produced by moving electric charges and propagates at the speed of light. It can be viewed as the combination of an electric field, produced by stationary charges, and a magnetic field, produced by moving charges. The interaction of charges and currents with the electromagnetic field is described by Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz force law. From a classical perspective, the electromagnetic field is a smooth, continuous field propagated in a wavelike manner, but from a quantum perspective, it is quantized with discrete energy states known as photons.

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71 views1 page

Electromagnetic Fields Explained

The electromagnetic field is produced by moving electric charges and propagates at the speed of light. It can be viewed as the combination of an electric field, produced by stationary charges, and a magnetic field, produced by moving charges. The interaction of charges and currents with the electromagnetic field is described by Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz force law. From a classical perspective, the electromagnetic field is a smooth, continuous field propagated in a wavelike manner, but from a quantum perspective, it is quantized with discrete energy states known as photons.

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AlemKomić
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An electromagnetic field (also EM field) is a classical (i.e.

non-quantum) field produced by


moving electric charges.[1] It is the field described by classical electrodynamics and is the classical
counterpart to the quantized electromagnetic field tensor in quantum electrodynamics. The
electromagnetic field propagates at the speed of light (in fact, this field can be identified as light) and
interacts with charges and currents. Its quantum counterpart is one of the four fundamental forces of
nature (the others are gravitation, weak interaction and strong interaction.)
The field can be viewed as the combination of an electric field and a magnetic field. The electric field
is produced by stationary charges, and the magnetic field by moving charges (currents); these two
are often described as the sources of the field. The way in which charges and currents interact with
the electromagnetic field is described by Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz force law.[2] The force
created by the electric field is much stronger than the force created by the magnetic field.[3]
From a classical perspective in the history of electromagnetism, the electromagnetic field can be
regarded as a smooth, continuous field, propagated in a wavelike manner. By contrast, from the
perspective of quantum field theory, this field is seen as quantized; meaning that the free quantum
field (i.e. non-interacting field) can be expressed as the Fourier sum of creation and annihilation
operators in energy-momentum space while the effects of the interacting quantum field may be
analyzed in perturbation theory via the S-matrix with the aid of a whole host of mathematical
technologies such as the Dyson series, Wick's theorem, correlation functions, time-evolution
operators, Feynman diagrams etc. Note that the quantized field is still spatially continuous; its energy
states however are discrete (the field's energy states must not be confused with its energy values,
which are continuous; the quantum field's creation operators create multiple discrete states of energy
called photons.)

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