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Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge / 2016 / ib / Paper 2 / 18D / b

Codex (@codex,  0) ... Mathematics course of the University of Cambridge Past exam of the mathematics course of the University of Cambridge 2016 ib Paper 2 18D
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b
Contractions of Lorentz tensors have no free indices and are Lorentz scalars. The antisymmetry and the components in part (a) give
Fμν​Fμν=2(∣B∣2−c2∣E∣2​),Fμν​Fμν=−c4​E⋅B.​
(1)
Thus E⋅B and ∣B∣2−∣E∣2/c2 are the two electromagnetic field invariants under proper Lorentz transformations. The second contraction uses the orientation-dependent epsilon tensor: strictly, E⋅B is a pseudoscalar, changing sign under an improper transformation such as spatial parity. Under the boosts in this question it is invariant.

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