On the classification of electromagnetic media

Abstract

This paper reviews a topic of collaboration between the present author and professor F. Olyslager1 of the 1990's concerning the generalization of classes of electromagnetic media in which fields can be naturally decomposed in two noninteracting components. As a continuation to this research it is shown that the medium classes, originally defined in terms of three-dimensional Gibbsian dyadic algebra, can be introduced in a compact manner by applying four-dimensional multivector dyadic formalism. It is also shown that these classes are closed in the affine transformation.