1. Definition of electric and magnetic fields in curved spacetime
- Author
-
Jai-chan Hwang and Hyerim Noh
- Subjects
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena (astro-ph.HE) ,High Energy Physics - Theory ,High Energy Physics - Theory (hep-th) ,FOS: Physical sciences ,General Physics and Astronomy ,General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology (gr-qc) ,Astrophysics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena ,General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology - Abstract
Defining the electric and magnetic field vectors in curved spacetime requires a proper choice of the observer's frame four-vector. Related literature shows that this fundamental issue in physics still needs to be properly resolved. In recent literature on using electromagnetic means to detect gravitational waves, an ad hoc definition based on regarding $F_{ab}$ with two covariant indices as the special relativistic one is popular. We show that by assigning physical fields to tensor components in that way, one cannot identify the frame four-vector allowing such a choice, thus failing to properly define the external charge and current densities in that frame. We propose the normal frame as the proper one. In this frame, the weak gravity corrections appear as the effective polarizations and magnetizations in both the homogeneous and inhomogeneous parts of Maxwell equations., 6 pages, no figure, published version in Annals of Physics
- Published
- 2023