On the genesis of Post constraint in modern electromagnetism

Abstract

The genesis of the Post constraint is premised on two attributes of modern electromagnetism: (i) its microscopic nature, and (ii) the status ofẽ (x, t) andb (x, t) as the primitive electromagnetic fields. This constraint can therefore not arise in EH-electromagnetism, wherein the primitive electromagnetic fields are the macroscopic fieldsẼ (x, t) andH (x, t). Available experimental evidence against the Post constraint is incomplete and inconclusive.

Boundary-value problems and the validity of the Post constraint in modern electromagnetism

“…Neither H excess (x, ω) nor D excess (x, ω) survives, and may therefore be discarded ab initio. The Post constraint thus removes the nonuniqueness inherent in (17), not to mention in (13) and (14), which can appear in two of the four Maxwell postulates in relation to the other two postulates. No wonder, de Lange and Raab [16,17] could recently complete a major exercise -whereby a multipole formulation of linear materials that was initially noncompliant with the Post constraint was made compliant.…”

“…Relevant to the Post constraint, reference is made to two papers wherein the boundary S is a specularly smooth plane of infinite extent [10,11]. More complicated boundaries have also been tackled [9,12,13]. The inescapable conclusion from examining the results of boundary value problems is that the fields scattered in V + by the material contained in V − are affected by the Tellegen parameter (if any).…”

“…Available experimental evidence against the validity of the Post constraint for linear materials was shown to be incomplete and inconclusive, in addition to being based either on the physically inadmissible premise of purely instantaneous response and/or derived from a pre-modern version of electromagnetism [1].…”

Magnetoelectric Cr2O3 and relativity theory

“…Lakhtakia, see [32], dubbed the relation α = 0 the "Post constraint" and pushed it as a presumed consequence of Maxwell's equations quite vigorously. Lakhtakia's arguments have never been convincing to a determined minority, see, for instance, Sihvola and Tretyakov [56,60].…”

Transverse-electric Brewster effect enabled by nonmagnetic two-dimensional materials

“…Recently, the advent of metamaterials [9] provides a new way to create nonunity effective relative permeability in all-dielectric systems. This led to the TE Brewster effect being experimentally reported in bulk metamaterials [10,11], and the Brewster effect being studied in magnetic [12,13], anisotropic [7,[14][15][16][17][18][19], chiral [2,20], and bianisotropic [21] media. Moreover, although the Brewster effect is regarded as a phenomenon occurring at a homogeneous interface between two different bulk media, its concept has been extended to the thin metasurface through artificially tailoring the interface to be nonhomogeneous [19,22,23].…”