Poynting Vector?If light is a wave radiation of electric field and magnetic field ,so fields bend light?

Question

Is that related to the Zeeman effect?If light is composed of both fields then, any of the two fields would cause interaction,thus affecting light ether by bending or interference?Did ever Michelson adn Morley ever considered the earth magnetic field interaction with lightin their experiment?

Answer 1

The Zeeman effect is the splitting of degenerate energy levels of 2 particles with different nuclear spin in the presence of a magnetic field.

Answer 2

Since light can be thought of as a wave, as it usually is, we can apply the principle of superposition to it. Superposition says that the waves can add constructively or destructively to each other. If they are completely in phase with each other, then they will add constructively and the amplitude will be the sum of the two waves. If they are completely out of phase then they will add destructively and their amplitudes will be the difference of the two. If they are somewhat in/out of phase then something in between will occur. In some places they will add and in other places they will subtract and the overall effect will be a more complicated wave than either individual wave, usually.

Another interesting aspect to superposition is that once the waves no longer occupy the same space they continue on along their original paths with no change in the waves.

That is why we can separate out the different colors in sunlight. When we pass the light through a prism, the colors are separated in space. They no longer interfere with each other and so we no longer see the sum of their amplitudes in one place, so the light no longer appears white.

I'm not sure if Michelson and Morely accounted for the earths magnetic field in their experiments or not, but I do know that the magnetic field is very small in any one place on the surface of the earth. I think it is small enough to be safely discounted.

Answer 3

As I'm sure you know, photons have both wave and particle characteristics. The "particle" is not mass, but rather just a quanta of energy. The photons are massless and carry no electric charge - hence they are unaffected by a magnetic field.
I'm pretty confident that Michelson and Morley never considered the earth's magnetic field - and, luckily, they didn't need to.

Answer 4

An electric field cannot interact with another electric field. I mean to say that one field cannot change the direction or magnitude of another filed. However there can be a resultant field which is found using vector addition.

If there is a charged particle like electron etc. then their motion is affected by the resultant of those two fields.

Thus the direction of light which is an electromagnetic radiation will not be affected by another electric or magnetic field.

This is because any time we can resolve the resultant electric field into its constituent fields.