[Physics] momentum for charge

classical-mechanicsconservation-lawselectrostaticsmomentum

Since mass and charge behave similarly, so, just like center of mass, I define a point center of charge, that is defined by

$$\vec r_{qm} = \frac {\sum{q_i \vec r_i}} {\sum{q_i}}$$

where $\vec r_i$ is a position vector w.r.t. the origin.

Now suppose just like momentum,there is a quantity we call charge-momentum $q \vec v$ for a system which is changed iff there is an external quantity denoted by $q \vec a$ where $\vec a= \frac{d\vec v}{dt}$ . Let us name this new quantity $ q\vec a$ as charge-force.

Now I conjecture, for every charge force, there is an equal and opposite charge force.

And that charge-momentum of an isolated system will be conserved. Just like momentum, can this be a conserved quantity of the universe? Does this make any sense ?

Best Answer

Of course you can define such a quantity, but the question is: does it mean anything physically?

Contrary to what has been stated in some of the answers/comments, this quantity is not comparable to a "normalized" dipole moment. A dipole is a system of two charges equal in magnitude but opposite in sign. The corresponding dipole moment, which is of great importance for the description of many phenomena in electromagnetism, is defined as the product of the magnitude of one of the charges and their displacement vector. It would be equal to the numerator of your expression if you put the negative charge to the origin, the only term in the sum would be the product of the charge and the position (displacement) vector. So far so good: but what about the statement that your expression would then be a "normalized dipole moment"? Let us look at the denominator: in case of a dipole, the sum of both charges amounts to zero, so we would have a division by zero. This does not give us something normalized, but rather something ill-defined. Hence, this concept does not make much sense.

This problem remains for any system where the sum of charges is equal to zero, i.e. for neutral systems. Thus, it is not defined for many physically important situations and even in cases where it is, it does not tell us anything about the properties of that system.

Your "charge momentum" is related to the current density, which is given by the product of charge density and velocity. Its time derivative would simply be the rate of change of a current, and meaningful for example in a system with time-dependent electrostatic potential: this can be found in electrotechnical application when dealing with alternate currents. But can this be compared to a force?

To answer this question, we have to examine the nature of the comparison of the quantity $q\vec{v}$ to momentum in mechanics. What makes momentum so special is the fact that it is conserved for closed systems, i.e. systems without any external forces. But what is required in order for a certain quantity to be conserved?

One of the key principles of classical mechanics, Noether's theorem, tells us that conserved quantities (also called "conserved charges" or "Noether charges") are related to continuous symmetries of a system (there are various sources on the internet and books which describe this principle in as much detail as one might imagine). The conservation of momentum is a consequence of translational invariance of a physical system. In order to be comparable to momentum, your "charge momentum" would have to correspond to a continuous symmetry of the underlying system, but it turns out that there is none.

However, it is not completely unrelated to that concept either. While your "charge momentum" is no conserved quantity, charge itself is indeed one, corresponding to the $U(1)$ symmetry of electromagnetism. Within the framework of Noether's theorem, there also exists the notion of a so-called conserved four-current $J^\mu$, which has to satisfy

$$\partial_\mu J^\mu=0,$$

i.e. its four-divergence vanishes. In the case of the $U(1)$ symmetry, splitting space and time components and writing out the equation explicitely gives

$$\frac{\partial\rho}{\partial t}+\partial_i j^i=0,$$

which is nothing but the continuity equation where $\rho$ is charge density and $j^i$ is three-dimensional current density, which is related to your "charge momentum", as was already pointed out in the comments. There is no indication that the latter is conserved by itself.

Since there is no conservation of "charge momentum", i.e. no analogue to Newton's first law, applicability of an analogue of Newton's second law, which states that force is defined as the time-derivative of conserved momentum is highly doubtful. Furthermore, there is no reason to assume that the principle of "actio=reactio" (Newton's third law) should hold.

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