Beltrami vector fields waves

In this final section, it is shown that the three magnetic field components of electromagnetic radiation in 0(3) electrodynamics are Beltrami vector fields, illustrating the fact that conventional Maxwell-Heaviside electrodynamics are incomplete. Therefore Beltrami electrodynamics can be regarded as foundational, structuring the vacuum fields of nature, and extending the point of view of Heaviside, who reduced the original Maxwell equations to their presently accepted textbook form. In this section, transverse plane waves are shown to be solenoidal, complex lamellar, and Beltrami, and to obey the Beltrami equation, of which B is an identically nonzero solution. In the Beltrami electrodynamics, therefore, the existence of the transverse 1 = implies that of , as in 0(3) electrodynamics. 

Besides its appearance in the FFMF equation in plasma physics, as well as associated with time-harmonic fields in chiral media, the chiral Beltrami vector field reveals itself in theoretical models for classical transverse electromagnetic (TEM) waves. Specifically, the existence of a general class of TEM waves has been advanced in which the electric and magnetic field vectors are parallel [59]. Interestingly, it was found that for one representation of this wave type, the magnetic vector potential (A) satisfies a Beltrami equation ... 

Up to now, we have examined how the Beltrami vector field relation surfaces in many electromagnetic contexts, featuring predominantly plane-wave solutions (PWSs) to the free-space Maxwell equations in conjunction with biisotropic media (Lakhtakia-Bohren), in homogeneous isotropic vacua (Hillion/Quinnez), or in the magnetostatic context exemplified by FFMFs associated with plasmas (Bostick, etc.). 

This is clearly a Beltrami equation, but what is more amazing is that the field result (88) describes a solution to the free-space Maxwell equations that, in contrast to standard PWS, the electric (E0) and magnetic (Bo) vectors are parallel [e.g., Eo x Bo = 0, where Eo x Bo = i(E0 A Bo)], the signal (group) velocity of the wave is subluminal (v < c), the field invariants are non-null, and as (91) clearly shows, this wave is not transverse but possesses longitudinal components. Moreover, Rodrigues and Vaz found similar solutions to the free-space Maxwell equations that describe a superluminal (v > c) situation [71]. 

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