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On the Material Invariant Formulation of Maxwell’s Displacement Current

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Maxwell accounted for the apparent elastic behavior of the electromagnetic field by augmenting Ampere’s law with the so-called displacement current, in much the same way that he treated the viscoelasticity of gases. Maxwell’s original constitutive relations for both electrodynamics and fluid dynamics were not material invariant. In the theory of viscoelastic fluids, the situation was later corrected by Oldroyd, who introduced the upper-convective derivative. Assuming that the electromagnetic field should follow the general requirements for a material field, we show that if the upper convected derivative is used in place of the partial time derivative in the displacement current term, Maxwell’s electrodynamics becomes material invariant. Note, that the material invariance of Faraday’s law is automatically established if the Lorentz force is admitted as an integral part of the model. The new formulation ensures that the equation for conservation of charge is also material invariant in vacuo. The viscoelastic medium whose apparent manifestation are the known phenomena of electrodynamics is called here the metacontinuum.

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  1. Department of Mathematics, University of Louisiana at Lafayette, Lafayette, LA, 70504, USA

    Christo I. Christov

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Christov, C.I. On the Material Invariant Formulation of Maxwell’s Displacement Current. Found Phys 36, 1701–1717 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10701-006-9075-7

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