Multipole Theory in Electromagnetism: Classical, Quantum and Symmetry Aspects, with Applications

Abstract

`Good reasons must, of force, give place to better', observes Brutus to Cassius, according to William Shakespeare in Julius Caesar. Roger Raab and Owen de Lange seem to agree, as they cite this sentence in the concluding chapter of their new book on the importance of exact multipole analysis in macroscopic electromagnetics. Very true and essential to remember in our daily research work. The two scientists from the University of Natal in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa (presently University of KwaZulu-Natal) have been working for a very long time on the accurate description of electric and magnetic response of matter and have published much of their findings in various physics journals. The present book gives us a clear and coherent exposition of many of these results. The important message of Raab and de Lange is that in the macroscopic description of matter, a correct balance between the various orders of electric and magnetic multipole terms has to be respected. If the inclusion of magnetic dipole terms is not complemented with electric quadrupoles, there is a risk of losing the translational invariance of certain important quantities. This means that the values of these quantities depend on the choice of the origin! `It can't be Nature, for it is not sense' is another of the apt literary citations in the book. Often monographs written by researchers look like they have been produced using a cut-and-paste technique; earlier published articles are included in the same book but, unfortunately, too little additional effort is expended into moulding the totality into a unified story. This is not the case with Raab and de Lange. The structure and the text flow of the book serve perfectly its important message. After the obligatory introduction of material response to electromagnetic fields, constitutive relations, basic quantum theory and spacetime properties, a chapter follows with transmission and scattering effects where everything seems to work well with the `old' multipole theory. But then the focus is shifted to observables associated with the reflection of waves from a surface. And there the classical analysis fails. This gives the motivation for the following chapters where the transformed multipole theory is represented. As expected, the correct multipole balance restores the physicality of the results in the reflection problem. One of the healthy reminders for an electrical engineer-scientist reading the book is the fact that E and B are the primary electric and magnetic fields. The other two field quantities, D and H, are the response fields (which, by the way, are also shown to be origin-dependent and poorly\endcolumn defined in the framework of classical multipole theory). In defence, however, for these poor latter quantities one can mention the many advantages of the engineering-type constitutive relations where D and B are expressed as responses to E and H. An example is the beautiful symmetry and complete analogy between the electric and magnetic quantities (voltage becomes current and vice versa in the duality transformation) which helps us write down solutions to electromagnetic problems from other known cases. From a pragmatic point of view we would also favour the use of quantities like Poynting vector and energy density (which require the H field). Another discussion-provoking question to the authors of the book might be whether their new multipole balance could be broken in the analysis of artificial materials. New nanotechnological discoveries and devices make it look like engineers can do anything. Perhaps in the design of complex media and metamaterials, a hot topic in today's materials science, such macroscopic responses can be tailored where a certain high-order multipole contribution dominates over other, more basic ones. Multiple Theory in Electromagnetism is suitable for a broad spectrum of readers: solid-state physicists, molecular chemists, theoretical and experimental optics scientists, radiophysics experts, electromagnetists and other electrical engineers, students and working scientists alike. This is a wonderful book. It certainly should appeal to them all.