https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/s13360-021-01835-9
Regular Article
Can classical electrodynamics predict nonlocal effects?
1
Instituto de Geofísica, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 04510, Ciudad de México, México
2
Department of Physics and Astronomy, University College London, WC1E 6BT, London, UK
Received:
7
May
2021
Accepted:
3
August
2021
Published online:
17
August
2021
Classical electrodynamics is a local theory describing local interactions between charges and electromagnetic fields and therefore one would not expect that this theory could predict nonlocal effects. But this perception implicitly assumes that the electromagnetic configurations lie in simply connected regions. In this paper, we consider an electromagnetic configuration lying in a non-simply connected region, which consists of a charged particle encircling an infinitely long solenoid enclosing a uniform magnetic flux, and show that the electromagnetic angular momentum of this configuration describes a nonlocal interaction between the encircling charge outside the solenoid and the magnetic flux confined inside the solenoid. We argue that the nonlocality of this interaction is of topological nature by showing that the electromagnetic angular momentum of the configuration is proportional to a winding number. The magnitude of this electromagnetic angular momentum may be interpreted as the classical counterpart of the Aharonov–Bohm phase.
© The Author(s) 2021
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