Students' confusions about the electric field of a uniformly moving charge

Abstract

In light of a recent direct experimental confirmation of a Lorentz contraction of Coulomb field (an electric field of a point charge in a uniform motion), we revisit some common confusions related to it, to be mindful of in teaching the subject. These include the questions about a radial nature of the field, a role of the retardation effect due to a finite speed of information transfer and some issues related to a depiction of Coulomb field by means of the Lorentz contracted field lines.

10 pages, 5 figures

References in corpus (2)

• A simple derivation of the electromagnetic field of an arbitrarily moving charge
• The Fields of a Charged Particle in Hyperbolic Motion

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Lorentz contraction of electric field lines for a point charge in uniform motion