Gauge freedom in magnetostatics and the effect on helicity in toroidal volumes

Fuente: arXiv
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Hauptverfasser: Pfefferlé, David, Noakes, Lyle
Format: Preprint
Veröffentlicht: 2019
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author Pfefferlé, David
Noakes, Lyle
author_facet Pfefferlé, David
Noakes, Lyle
contents Magnetostatics defines a class of boundary value problems in which the topology of the domain plays a subtle role. For example, representability of a divergence-free field as the curl of a vector potential comes about because of homological considerations. With this in mind, we study gauge-freedom in magnetostatics and its effect on the comparison between magnetic configurations through key quantities such as the magnetic helicity. For this, we apply the Hodge decomposition of $k$-forms on compact orientable Riemaniann manifolds with smooth boundary, as well as de Rham cohomology, to the representation of magnetic fields through potential $1$-forms in toroidal volumes. An advantage of the homological approach is the recovery of classical results without explicit coordinates and assumptions about the fields on the exterior of the domain. In particular, a detailed construction of a minimal gauge and a formal proof of relative helicity formulae are presented.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_1909_02723
institution arXiv
publishDate 2019
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Gauge freedom in magnetostatics and the effect on helicity in toroidal volumes
Pfefferlé, David
Noakes, Lyle
Plasma Physics
Mathematical Physics
Magnetostatics defines a class of boundary value problems in which the topology of the domain plays a subtle role. For example, representability of a divergence-free field as the curl of a vector potential comes about because of homological considerations. With this in mind, we study gauge-freedom in magnetostatics and its effect on the comparison between magnetic configurations through key quantities such as the magnetic helicity. For this, we apply the Hodge decomposition of $k$-forms on compact orientable Riemaniann manifolds with smooth boundary, as well as de Rham cohomology, to the representation of magnetic fields through potential $1$-forms in toroidal volumes. An advantage of the homological approach is the recovery of classical results without explicit coordinates and assumptions about the fields on the exterior of the domain. In particular, a detailed construction of a minimal gauge and a formal proof of relative helicity formulae are presented.
title Gauge freedom in magnetostatics and the effect on helicity in toroidal volumes
topic Plasma Physics
Mathematical Physics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/1909.02723