# Can anyone please tell me a book or any paper where I can find this

## Main Question or Discussion Point

Hello everyone. I have been looking for a book or any article where I can get a good description about classical theory of energy transfer from electromagnetic field to a particle. I am particularly interested in how much work is done by the field when it interacts with the partciel (for example, interaction of light with atom/molecule). I want to know if there is a force . displacement approach to calculate the energy transfer from field to partciel. Please let me know. Thanks a lot.

## Answers and Replies

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Danger
Gold Member
I'm afraid that I know nothing about the subject. My first thought is to read any of Maxwell's papers, whether published or not.

You should post it on the book discussion sub forum here. This is not the right place.

This is simply the Newton's equations of motion with the Lorentz force acting on the particle(s): F= q(E+vxB) .
If a particle is at rest and interacts with an electromagnetic wave-packet, we can easily guess that it will be put into motion, meaning that it will have absorbed energy.

Of course the amount of energy absorbed depends on the precise shape of the wave packet.
We could easily imagine a wavepacket-game that would shake a particle for a while but in the end leave it at rest once the wavepacket has passed his way.
Oh well, is it actually possible to do that?

Actually, starting from this simple premise, may actually lead to interresting questions.
Really many.
From particle accelerators to the difficulties of classical physics applied to atoms, including any microwave devices, plasma physics, optics, ... , Landau damping, Kramer-Kronig relations, causality, ...

There are many books dealing wuth that topic, but as the subject can be very broad it is difficult to give a specific reference. You could look for electrodynamics on google books. If you have precise topics in mind, let us know. For the interaction with fully ionised classical plasmas, I could could provide maybe 10 famous references.

Last edited:
K^2
Work won't depend on magnetic force because of the cross product. Use the fore equation above to compute power delivered to particle.

$$P = F \cdot v = q(E + v\times B) \cdot v = q(E \cdot v + (v\times B) \cdot v)$$

Since for any pair of vectors a and b

$$(a\times b)\cdot a = 0$$

The equation for power is just

$$P = q E\cdot v$$

Work won't depend on magnetic force because of the cross product. Use the fore equation above to compute power delivered to particle.

$$P = F \cdot v = q(E + v\times B) \cdot v = q(E \cdot v + (v\times B) \cdot v)$$

Since for any pair of vectors a and b

$$(a\times b)\cdot a = 0$$

The equation for power is just

$$P = q E\cdot v$$
Thanks a lot man. That really helped. Now, is there any way to apply that equation for energy transferred by field to a quantum particle? Can we use the force . displacement equation to get the work done on a quantum system?