Sign of Maxwell's stress tensor

AI Thread Summary
The discussion centers on the negative sign in Maxwell's stress tensor relative to the electromagnetic momentum energy tensor. It highlights the relationship between the Poynting vector and the force per unit volume of the electromagnetic field, emphasizing that the force is derived from the divergence of the negative stress tensor. The preference is expressed for defining the Maxwell stress tensor in terms of the energy-momentum tensor, suggesting a formulation where the stress tensor is negative of the energy-momentum tensor. References to authoritative texts, such as Landau and Lifshitz, are provided to support the claims. Understanding this sign convention is crucial for accurate applications in electromagnetic theory.
sweet springs
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Why Maxwell's stress tensor has minus sign to the corresponding components of electromagnetic momentum energy tensor ?

From WP ---
Bzx%7D%20&%20-%5Csigma_%5Ctext%7Bzy%7D%20&%20-%5Csigma_%5Ctext%7Bzz%7D%20%5Cend%7Bbmatrix%7D$%7D.png
,

where
imgtex.png
,
is the Poynting vector,
imgtex.png

is the Maxwell stress tensor, and c is the speed of light.
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Thanks. From there

-\mathbf{f} = \epsilon_0 \mu_0 \frac{\partial \mathbf{S}}{\partial t}\, + \nabla \cdot \mathbf{(-\sigma)}

where f is the force per unit volume of material, so -f should be the force per unit volume of e.m. field.

Rather than \mathbf{T^{ij}}=\mathbf{-\sigma}^{ij}, \mathbf{\sigma^{ij}} first, I prefer T first, defined from T,
\mathbf{\sigma^{ij}} =\mathbf{-T^{ij}}.
 
Bzx%7D%20&%20-%5Csigma_%5Ctext%7Bzy%7D%20&%20-%5Csigma_%5Ctext%7Bzz%7D%20%5Cend%7Bbmatrix%7D$%7D.png
,

On which wikipedia page did you find this?
 
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