Faraday Tensor
Physics
World
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The
electric and magnetic field’s, E = (E1,
E2,
E3)
= (Ex,
Ey,
Ez)
and B = (B1,
B2,
B3)
= (Bx,
By,
Bz),
can be expressed in terms of the Coulomb potential, F,
and the magnetic vector potential, a =
(a1,
a2,
a3)
= (ax,
ay,
az),
as
![]()
and

The 4-potential
is defined as
![]()
The Faraday
tensor, whose components are Fab,
is defined in terms of the components of the 4-potential as
![]()
where

The
Faraday tensor is antisymetric since Fab =
-Fba.
It therefore has 6
independent components, three of which are found by evaluating F0k
to obtain

The last three are F12, F13, F23, where

![]()

Eqs.
(6) through (8) can be expressed in matrix form as
