Abstract
There has existed a continuing dialogue concerning the proper identification of radiation forces and momenta in dielectric media. I argue herein that a sensible and consistent picture of these forces and momenta is available. That is, the density of electromagnetic momentum is given by , where is Poynting's vector. The forces which are exerted on material objects in dielectric media are associated with changes in both the electromagnetic and mechanical momenta of the media. In fairly broad circumstances, such forces may be found from the rate of change in a pseudomomentum given by , where is the dielectric constant of the medium.
- Received 19 January 1973
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.8.14
©1973 American Physical Society