Magnetic and Electrical Separation
Volume 3 (1992), Issue 4, Pages 259-265
doi:10.1155/1992/17383

Hidden Momentum and the Force on a Magnetic Dipole

V. Hnizdo

Department of Physics and Schonland Research Centre for Nuclear Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg 2050, South Africa

Received 24 February 1992

Copyright © 1992 Hindawi Publishing Corporation. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

The problem of the correct expression for the force on a magnetic dipole in vacuum is discussed. Different models of magnetic dipole are considered and particular attention is given to the presence of hidden momentum, which modifies the usual expression for the force on a current-loop dipole when the external electromagnetic field is not static.