
36 1. Basic Electromagnetic Theory
(1) Energy Densities in Lossless, Dispersive, Isotropic Media
The average energy density stored in the fields in dispersive media is obtained
as follows [78]. It has been shown in Sects. 1.1.2 that for dispersive media the
constitutive parameters depend upon not only the instantaneous values but
also the derivatives of fields with respect to time. For time-harmonic fields,
the constitutive parameters are functions of frequency . In dispersive media,
relations (1.165) and (1.166) and the expressions for the energy densities
(1.171), (1.181), (1.189) and( 1.190) are no longer valid. We must go back to
(1.161) and (1.162), in which
∂w
e
∂t
= E ·
∂D
∂t
,
∂w
m
∂t
= H ·
∂B
∂t
. (1.191)
We see that, in general, the rate of change of the electric energy density is
equal to the scalar product of the electric field and the displacement current
density and the rate of change of the magnetic energy density is equal to the
scalar product of the magnetic field and the displacement magnetic current
density. The energy densities become
w
e
(t) =
Z
E ·
∂D
∂t
dt + C
e
, w
m
(t) =
Z
H ·
∂B
∂t
dt + C
m
, (1.192)
where C
e
and C
m
are integration constants whose values depend on how the
fields are established. This means that the instantaneous energy density in
a dispersive medium are not fully determined by means of the instantaneous
value of the field. We assume that the wave is quasi-monochromatic, then for
t → −∞ we have E(−∞) = 0, w
e
(−∞) = 0, and hence C
e
= 0. In a similar
way the integration constant for magnetic energy is also shown to be zero.
That is, for a quasi-monochromatic wave that starts with a value of zero in
the remote past and builds up gradually, the integration constants are zero
and w
e
(t) and w
m
(t) are fully determined.
First we deal with the electric energy in a lossless, electric-dispersive
medium, and assume that the time dependence of the electric field has the
form of a slowly modulated high-frequency function of time:
E(t) = E sin ∆ωt sin ωt =
1
2
E[cos(ω − ∆ω)t − cos(ω + ∆ω)t], (1.193)
where E is a constant vector that denotes the peak value of the modulated
wave, and the modulation frequency ∆ω is sufficiently small compared to the
carrier frequency ω. Thus E(t) has the form of a high-frequency carrier sin ωt
whose modulation envelope sin ∆ωt varies slowly with time. The electric
induction or electric displacement vector is then given by
D(t) = ²(ω)E(t)
=
1
2
E[²
(ω −∆ω)
cos(ω − ∆ω)t − ²
(ω +∆ω)
cos(ω + ∆ω)t], (1.194)