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Suppose I have a parallel plate capacitor with a vacuum between the plates, a voltage $V$ across them and a capacitance of $C$.

What will this arrangement look like to an observer in a uniformly moving frame of reference with velocity $v$ at right angles to the capacitor plates? Obviously the apparent plate separation is changed, so presumably the capacitance changes, but what about the electric field between the plates and the stored energy?

(Not a homework question - though I'm exploring whether it could be...!)

Qmechanic
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ProfRob
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  • Related: http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/52907/2451 – Qmechanic Oct 04 '14 at 15:47
  • duplicate of http://physics.stackexchange.com/q/52907/ –  Nov 02 '14 at 16:00
  • @ArtBrown: The energy is the only part that isn't trivial. The other, trivial parts are already addressed in the answers to the other question. –  Nov 02 '14 at 18:54

1 Answers1

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One expects the energy stored in the capacitor to transform like the zeroth component of the four-vector $(U,\vec p)$. In its rest frame the field configuration around the capacitor has $$(U,\vec p)_\text{rest}=(U_0,\vec 0),$$ and by the Lorentz transformation the moving observer will see $$(U,\vec p)_\text{moving}=(\gamma U_0, \gamma\vec\beta U_0),$$ where $\gamma=(1-\beta^2)^{-1/2}$ and $\vec\beta=\vec v/c$ as usual.

If the moving observer calculates the capacitance $$ C_\text{rest} = \frac{\epsilon_0 A}{d} $$ he'll see a length-contracted separation $d_\text{moving}=d_\text{rest}/\gamma$ between the plates but the same area $A$ and the same vacuum permittivity $\epsilon_0$. That gives us $C_\text{moving}=\gamma C_\text{rest}$, which translates the way we expect for the stored energy $U=\frac12 C V^2$ — assuming that the potential difference $V$ is the same in both frames.

However, also asking about the fields brings out the interesting parts of the problem. By the symmetry argument using Gauss's Law, the electric field inside the volume of the capacitor has the same magnitude $|\vec E| = \sigma/{\epsilon_0}$, where $\sigma=Q/A$ is the surface charge density on the capacitor plates and is the same in both reference frames. The moving observer sees this field occupying a smaller volume than the stationary observer, and so the part of the energy stored in the electric field, $$ U^\text{electric} = \int d^3x \frac{\epsilon_0}2 E^2, $$ is actually smaller by $1/\gamma$ for the moving observer, even though we've already decided that the total energy for the moving observer increases.

The way out, of course, is to remember that each of the moving charged plates is a strangely-shaped current distribution which produces closed loops of magnetic field. Imagine that the capacitor is approaching you with the positive plate first. As it gets near you'll feel counterclockwise-going magnetic fields; if you happened to pass through the uniform field region the magnetic field would vanish; there'd be a clockwise-going magnetic field as the negative plate receded from you. The magnetic field will be strongest in regions where the electric field changes rapidly, as the moving observer passes through the fringe field of the capacitor. The stored energy in this magnetic field $U^\text{magnetic}$ apparently grows faster than $U^\text{electric}$ shrinks.

I think this argument suggests that a moving observer also sees a smaller potential difference $V$ across a capacitor than an observer in the capacitor's rest frame, which surprises me a little.

rob
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  • This is wrong. If you neglect fringing fields, the magnetic field vanishes in both frames. This is easy to verify using the transformation of the electric and magnetic field. An E field parallel to the boost transforms into a pure E field. –  Nov 02 '14 at 15:57
  • No @BenCrowell, you're wrong. Suppose you neglect all the fringing fields and you drill a negligible hole in the capacitor, so that an observer can pass through the field region. That observer will see zero $\vec E$, then nonzero $\vec E$, then zero $\vec E$ again. This combination of step functions means the derivative of the electric field $\partial\vec E/\partial t$ contains two delta functions everywhere along the capacitor's path, and so does $\vec\nabla\times\vec B$. You may be thinking of some bizarre, unphysical limit where $\vec\nabla\times\vec B$ is infinite while $\vec B$ vanishes? – rob Nov 02 '14 at 21:31
  • Your argument based on the stress-energy approach of Rindler and Denur is interesting, and I'll have to chew on it for a while. Lots of cases like this in electromagnetism have more than one route to a correct answer (a recent example). The stress-energy approach ignores the magnetic field in the moving frame and comes to the right answer; I wonder whether it goes the other way, too. – rob Nov 02 '14 at 22:07
  • We have two independent issues here, (1) whether the fringing fields matter, and (2) the argument about an induced B field given in your comment above. On #2 I'm convinced that you have to be wrong, since the transformation of the fields is extremely simple, in the region far from the fringing fields. Your argument about the delta functions in $\partial E/\partial t$ has a problem, because you've neglected the delta function in the current due to the charge of the plate. I think this cancels the delta function in $\partial E/\partial t$. –  Nov 03 '14 at 02:13
  • Hmm, you're right, there is a delta function in the current density. I've also found a reference stating that a permanent electric dipole $\vec p$ moving along a trajectory $\vec R(t)$ produces a field as if from a magnetic dipole with moment proportional to $\vec p \times d{\vec R}/dt$, which vanishes if the moment and the speed are parallel. So even if you account for the fringing fields exactly by treating the capacitor as a superposition of many dipoles, there's still no $B$ in the moving frame. A surprise for me! – rob Nov 03 '14 at 03:05