Recent developments in premetric classical electrodynamics
arXiv:physics/0610221
Abstract
Classical electrodynamics can be based on the conservation laws of electric charge and magnetic flux. Both laws are independent of the metric and the linear connection of spacetime. Within the framework of such a premetric electrodynamics -- provided a local and linear constitutive law of the vacuum is added -- the propagation of electromagnetic waves in the geometric-optics limit can be studied. The wave vectors of the wave fronts obey a quartic extended Fresnel equation. If one forbids birefringence in vacuum, the light cone emerges and Maxwell-Lorentz vacuum electrodynamics can be recovered. If minimal coupling of electrodynamics to gravity is assumed, then only the gravitational potential, i.e., the metric of spacetime, emerges in the constitutive law. We discuss recent results within this general framework.
Invited lectures given at the 3rd Summer School in Modern Mathematical Physics, 20-31 August 2004, Zlatibor, Serbia and Montenegro; references updated
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