Huygens' principle in classical electrodynamics: a distributional approach

Abstract

We derive Huygens' principle for electrodynamics in terms of 4-vector potentials defined as distributions supported on a surface surrounding the charge-current density. By combining the Pauli algebra with distribution theory, a compact and conceptually simple derivation of the Stratton-Chu and Kottler-Franz equations is obtained. These are extended to freely moving integration surfaces, so that the fields due to charge distributions in arbitrary motion are represented. A further generalization is obtained to multiple surfaces, which can be used to enclose clusters of transmitters, scatterers and receivers.