The geometry of induced electromagnetic fields in moving media

Abstract In this manuscript we provide a fully geometric formulation for the induced electromagnetic fields and their corresponding constitutive relations in moving media. To this end, we present the reader with a brief geometric summary to show how vector calculus electromagnetic theory is embedded in the more general language of differential forms. Then, we consider the class of metric constitutive relations describing the medium in which electromagnetic fields propagate. We explicitly obtain the components of the induced fields in a moving medium, as seen in the lab rest frame. This allows us to read the expressions for the permitivity, permeability and magnetoelectric matrices for the moving medium which, in turn, can be interpreted as a different physical material from the lab point of view.