ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY 2019-20

Practice Problems No. IV

April 17, 2020
Hints & Suggestions
April 24, 2020

1. Consider a colliding beam machine where two beams of particles are accelerated and
then made to collide. Let the particles in the two beams have masses m1 and m2 and
momenta p1 and p2 respectively. Let the particles intersect with an angle θ between
the two beams. Show that, to order (m/p)2 inclusive, the square of the total energy
in the center of mass is given by
 2
m1 m22

2 2
W = 4p1 p2 cos θ/2 + (p1 + p2 ) +
p1 p2
.

HINT & SUGGESTION:

Use the conservation of four momentum in the lab frame and then in the Center
of Mass frame and use the properties of invariance of scalars. For the incoming
particles, write the energies as powers of mp and use these.

2. (a) Does k1 Aµ + k2 B νµν transform as a tensor ? Here k1 , k2 are constants or scalars.

(b) Consider a rank 3 tensor Tαβγ which is symmetric in the first two indices and
antisymmetric in the last two indices. Show that

Tαβγ = 0

HINT & SUGGESTION:

For the first part, write the transformed vectors and use the properties of the deriva-
tives. For the second part use the symmetric and antisymmetric properties which
are given.

3. Use the current conservation relation ∇ · j(x) = 0 to show that the quantity

j(x0 ) j(x0 )
   
0 0
Y (x, x ) ≡ ∇ · = −∇ · , where R = |x − x0 | .
R R

1
 Here ∇0 is the gradient w.r.t the primed coordinate. Considering now the current dis-
tribution to be localized within a finite volume in space, obtain the value of the integral
Z
I(x) = d3 x0 Y (x, x0 ) .

HINT & SUGGESTION:

Use elementary vector identities and the fact that the derivatives w.r.t. x and x0
are different. Also use current conservation and Gauss’s Theorem.

4. Starting from the two covariant Maxwell’s equations find the expression for

∂α ∂ α Fµν
in terms of the four current J µ and its derivatives.

HINT & SUGGESTION:

Start with the two covariant Maxwell equations in terms of the field tensor and
its dual and take the derivative of one of them. Finally use the other equation to
express the result in terms of the current density.

5. A box slides frictionlessly on a long table with velocity v. A smaller box slides fric-
tionlessly on the first box in the same direction with same velocity v relative to the
first box. A third box slides frictionlessly on the second box also in the same direc-
tion with same relative velocity v, and so up to n boxes. What would be the velocity
v n of the nth box in the frame of the table ? What is the value of vn in the limit n → ∞ ?

Hint: Use the ‘rapidity’ parameter φ = tanh−1 β = (1/2) ln [(1 + β) / (1 − β)], where β = v/c .

HINT & SUGGESTION:

Use the velocity addition formula and the definition of rapidity along with the
Method of induction. Finally use some trigonometric identities involving hyper-
bolic functions.