Resolution of the abraham-minkowski dilemma.

The dilemma of identifying the correct form for the momentum of light in a medium has run for a century and has been informed by many distinguished contributions, both theoretical and experimental. We show that both the Abraham and Minkowski forms of the momentum density are correct, with the former being the kinetic momentum and the latter the canonical momentum. This identification allows us to explain why the experiments supporting each of the rival momenta gave the results that they did. The inclusion of dispersion and absorption provides an interesting subtlety, but does not change our conclusion.

[1]  S. Barnett,et al.  Radiation pressure and momentum transfer in dielectrics: The photon drag effect (11 pages) , 2005 .

[2]  Arthur Ashkin,et al.  Radiation Pressure on a Free Liquid Surface , 1973 .

[3]  M. Kimmitt,et al.  A study of radiation pressure in a refractive medium by the photon drag effect , 1980, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

[4]  J. Richards,et al.  The pressure of radiation in a refracting medium , 1954, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

[5]  Energy-momentum balance in quantum dielectrics , 2005, cond-mat/0510071.

[6]  Barnett,et al.  Quantization of the electromagnetic field in dielectrics. , 1992, Physical review. A, Atomic, molecular, and optical physics.

[7]  S. Barnett,et al.  On the electromagnetic force on a dielectric medium , 2006 .

[8]  Norman R. Heckenberg,et al.  Colloquium: Momentum of an electromagnetic wave in dielectric media , 2007, 0710.0461.

[9]  R. V. Jones,et al.  The measurement of optical radiation pressure in dispersive media , 1978, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

[10]  R. Loudon.  Radiation pressure and momentum in dielectrics , 2004 .

[11]  U. Leonhardt.  Optics: Momentum in an uncertain light , 2006, Nature.

[12]  S. Barnett,et al.  Momentum Exchange between Light and a Single Atom: Abraham or Minkowski? , 2008, Physical review letters.

[13]  Iver Brevik,et al.  Experiments in phenomenological electrodynamics and the electromagnetic energy-momentum tensor , 1979 .

[14]  R. Boyd,et al.  Electromagnetic momenta and forces in dispersive dielectric media , 2009, 0910.0770.

[15]  S. Barnett,et al.  Canonical Quantization of Light in a Linear Dielectric. , 1991 .

[16]  N. Balazs,et al.  The Energy-Momentum Tensor of the Electromagnetic Field inside Matter , 1953 .

[17]  M. Padgett.  On diffraction within a dielectric medium as an example of the Minkowski formulation of optical momentum. , 2008, Optics express.

[18]  G. Walker,et al.  Measurement of the Abraham Force in a Barium Titanate Specimen , 1975 .

[19]  Kristensen,et al.  Is photon angular momentum conserved in a dielectric medium? , 1994, Physical review letters.

[20]  Canonical and kinetic forms of the electromagnetic momentum in an ad hoc quantization scheme for a dispersive dielectric , 2004, quant-ph/0406222.

[21]  Jianhui Yu,et al.  Observation of a push force on the end face of a nanometer silica filament exerted by outgoing light. , 2008, Physical review letters.

[22]  Take a photon… , 1965 .

[23]  S. Barnett,et al.  The enigma of optical momentum in a medium , 2010, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences.

[24]  D. Pritchard,et al.  Photon recoil momentum in dispersive media. , 2005, Physical review letters.