8 research outputs found
Conformal Invariance and Electrodynamics: Applications and General Formalism
The role of the conformal group in electrodynamics in four space-time
dimensions is re-examined. As a pedagogic example we use the application of
conformal transformations to find the electromagnetic field for a charged
particle moving with a constant relativistic acceleration from the Coulomb
electric field for the particle at rest. We also re-consider the reformulation
of Maxwell's equations on the projective cone, which is isomorphic to a
conformal compactification on Minkowski space, so that conformal
transformations, belonging to the group O(4,2), are realised linearly. The
resulting equations are different from those postulated previously and respect
additional gauge invariances which play an essential role in ensuring
consistency with conventional electrodynamics on Minkowski space. The solution
on the projective cone corresponding to a constantly accelerating charged
particle is discussed.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure, plain tex, uses harvmac, eps