Elastic Liénard-Wiechert potentials of dynamical dislocations from tensor gauge theory

Abstract

The dynamics of defect excitations in crystalline solids is necessary to understand the macroscopic low-energy properties of elastic media. We use fracton-elasticity duality to systematically study the defect dynamics and interactions in the linear isotropic medium. We derive the explicit expressions for the dual gauge potentials for moving dislocations and the resulting Jefimenko's equations. We also compute stresses and strains. The study includes two physical situations: when vacancies are absent and when they are present in the solid. If defects are present we show a constraint that needs to be satisfied by the when they climb perpendicularly to their Burgers vector. Next, we extend the classic result of Peach and Koehler for the force between two dislocations and show that, similarly, to moving charges in electrodynamics, it is non-reciprocal, when one dislocation is moving. We argue that our formalism can be extended beyond Cauchy's elasticity by exploiting the simplifications provided by the dual gauge formulation of elastic stresses.