Superluminal Near-field Dipole Electromagnetic Fields

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present mathematical evidence that electromagnetic near-field waves and wave groups, generated by an oscillating electric dipole, propagate much faster than the speed of light as they are generated near the source, and reduce to the speed of light at about one wavelength from the source. The speed at which wave groups propagate (group speed) is shown to be the speed at which both modulated wave information and wave energy density propagate. Because of the similarity of the governing partial differential equations, two other physical systems (magnetic oscillating dipole, and gravitational radiating oscillating mass) are noted to have similar results.