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  • Open Access

Unified evolution of electromagnetic sources in homogeneous fields

Ivanina Ilieva1,*, Carsten Rockstuhl1,2, and Ivan Fernandez-Corbaton2

  • *Contact author: ivanina.ilieva@kit.edu
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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033086 – Published 23 July, 2025

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/s7xn-nftt

Abstract

In this work, we study the behavior of elementary electromagnetic sources, i.e., pointlike electric charges and intrinsic magnetic dipoles, in the presence of homogeneous electromagnetic fields in a classical and covariant setting. We show that the respective evolution equations for both kinds of sources can be formulated using a single Lorentz-like transformation with suitably adjusted parameters, thereby unifying the fundamental behavior of these intrinsic particle properties. We arrive at this description by expressing the evolution of the electric sources, governed by the Lorentz force, as a series of infinitesimal boosts and rotations acting on them, with the electric and magnetic field as the corresponding parameters. Upon suitable adjustments, we find a new effective Lorentz-like transformation, applicable to both electric and magnetic sources. We provide the results using both the tensorial and pseudovector representation of the magnetic sources. Finally, we obtain a nonrelativistic limit of the evolution equation for magnetic sources.

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Phys. Rev. Research 7, 033086– Published 23 July, 2025
  • Received 27 March 2025
  • Accepted 23 June 2025
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Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

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