PHY 1510F

Advanced Electromagnetism

Fall 2010

Monday, 1-3 (with the occasional Thursdays at 6-8 PM)

Room MP 408

Prof. Pekka K. Sinervo, F.R.S.C.

Department of Physics, MP 814A. Phone: (416) 978-5270
CIFAR, 180 Dundas Street, Suite 1400. (416) 971-4884

Office Hours: Thursday 10-12, MP 814A

Teaching Assistant: Snezana Prodan

DESCRIPTION OF THE COURSE

The goal of the course is to cover Classical Electromagnetic Theory at a graduate level. Topics will include: electrostatics, boundary-value problems, Green’s functions and multipole expansions; magnetostatics; magnetic field of localized current distributions; Faraday’s law of induction; Maxwell’s equations, retarded potentials; Poynting’s theorem and conservation laws; plane waves and dispersion; fields from an oscillating dipole.

BOOKS

The textbook for the course is Jackson, J. D., Classical Electrodynamics, (New York: Wiley, 1999) 3^rd edition. The book is available for purchase at the U of T Bookstore, both used and new. The book is also on short-term loan at the Physics and Gerstein Libraries.

FORMAT AND REQUIREMENTS

The course will meet for 2 hours of lecture and exercises per week. Students will be responsible for material covered in reading assignments as well as in class. Monday lectures will be 1:10-3. Thursday lectures will be 6:00-8:00 PM. Please note that the lecture on Nov 4 will be from 5:00-7:00 PM.

Performance in the course will be evaluated on the basis of 4 problem sets (15% each, adding to 60% total of the final grade), and 1 final examination (40% of the final grade).

The problem sets (15% each) will be distributed 1 week before they are due and will be collected at the beginning of class on October 4, November 4, November 15 and December 2. Szezana Prodan is the grader for the course, and she can be contacted by email (sprodan at physics.utoronto.ca).

The final exam (40%) will be open book. The date and location will be announced at a later date.

COURSE RULES AND POLICIES

Enrolment in PHY 1510F entails agreement to the following rules concerning course policies:

• Blackboard will be used to manage and coordinate the course. All students are required to have an active University of Toronto email for this purpose. Information on how to do this is available at Robarts Library.
• Late problem sets will be penalized. The problem sets must be handed in at the beginning of class on the day that they are due. The late penalty is 5% of the assignment’s total worth for each late day, weekends included. The cut-off time for the determination of the number of late days is 1 PM. Problem sets received after the solutions have been posted will not be accepted and will automatically receive a grade of 0. All late problem sets must be handed in my office, Room 814A at 60 St. George Street, or in class. Problem sets may be submitted by e-mail (pekka.sinervo at utoronto.ca) and the same deadlines apply.
• In general, extensions of time on the problem sets will not be granted, unless students obtain advance permission for a just and serious cause (for example, a medical or personal emergency supported by appropriate documentation, whenever possible). Students are expected to inform instructors of such mitigating circumstances as soon as possible. Late submissions will be penalized as specified and may not be accepted after certain dates.
• You are welcome to use Maple or Mathematica as you see fit. If you do, a signed copy of your worksheet must be submitted with your problem set. A scanned version with your signature is acceptable if submitting by email.

IMPORTANT DATES

Oct 4	First Problem Set due (at the beginning of class)
Oct 6	Last day to add course
Oct 11	No class, Thanksgiving holiday
Nov 4	Second Problem Set due (at the beginning of class)
Nov 3	Last day to drop course without academic penalty
Nov 15	Third Problem Set due (at the beginning of class)
Dec 2	Fourth Problem Set due (at the beginning of class)
Dec 2	Last class
TBA in December	Final Exam (Date and Place TBA)

SCHEDULE

	Dates	Topic	Readings	Course Requirements
Lecture 1	Sep 20	Electrostatics: Poisson and Laplace equations	Jackson ch. 1
Lecture 2	Sep 27	Green’s Theorem - Boundary Value Problems I	Jackson ch. 1,2	PS 1 handed out, due 4 Oct
Lecture 3	Oct 18	Boundary Value Problems II – spherical coordinates	Jackson ch. 3
Lecture 4	Oct 21; 6-8 PM	Green function in sperhical haromics Multipole expansion, dielectric media, polarizability	Jackson ch. 3,4	PS 2 handed out
Lecture 5	Nov 1	Dielectrics permittivity, magnetostatics, magnetic dipole moment	Jackson ch. 4,5
Lecture 6	Nov 4; 5:10-6:30 PM	Faraday’s Law	Jackson ch. 5	PS 2 due
Lecture 7	Nov 8	Maxwell’s equations; the wave equation; retarded potentials	Jackson ch. 6	PS 3 handed out
Lecture 8	Nov 11; 6-8 PM	Retarded potentials continued; Poynting’s theorem and Conservation Laws;	Jackson ch. 6,7
Lecture 9	Nov 15	Electromagnetic plane waves	Jackson ch. 6,7	PS 3 due
Lecture 10	Nov 18; 6-8 PM	Polarization, reflection and refraction of EM waves; frequency dispersion	Jackson ch. 7	PS 4 handed out
Lecture 11	Nov 29	Radiating systems, angular distribution of radiation, dipole approximation; Larmor’s formula	Jackson ch. 9
Lecture 12	Dec 2; 6-8 PM			PS 4 due

Problem Sets

Problem Set 1 -- Coulomb's Law and Green Function Problem Set 1 Solutions

Problem Set 2 -- Green functions and multipoles

Last Revised: 1 November 2010