Field (physics)

In physics, a field is a physical quantity,

represented by a scalar, vector, or tensor,
that has a value for each point in space
and time.[1][2][3] For example, on a weather
map, the surface temperature is described
by assigning a number to each point on
the map; the temperature can be
considered at a certain point in time or
over some interval of time, to study the
dynamics of temperature change. A
surface wind map,[4] assigning an arrow to
each point on a map that describes the
wind speed and direction at that point, is
an example of a vector field, i.e. a 1-
dimensional (rank-1) tensor field. Field
theories, mathematical descriptions of
how field values change in space and time,
are ubiquitous in physics. For instance, the
electric field is another rank-1 tensor field,
while electrodynamics can be formulated
in terms of two interacting vector fields at
each point in spacetime, or as a single-
rank 2-tensor field.[5][6][7]
Illustration of the electric field surrounding a positive (red) and a negative (blue) charge.

In the modern framework of the quantum

theory of fields, even without referring to a
test particle, a field occupies space,
contains energy, and its presence
precludes a classical "true vacuum".[8] This
has led physicists to consider
electromagnetic fields to be a physical
entity, making the field concept a
supporting paradigm of the edifice of
modern physics. "The fact that the
electromagnetic field can possess
momentum and energy makes it very real
... a particle makes a field, and a field acts
on another particle, and the field has such
familiar properties as energy content and
momentum, just as particles can have."[9]
In practice, the strength of most fields
diminishes with distance, eventually
becoming undetectable. For instance the
strength of many relevant classical fields,
such as the gravitational field in Newton's
theory of gravity or the electrostatic field in
classical electromagnetism, is inversely
proportional to the square of the distance
from the source (i.e., they follow Gauss's
law).
A field can be classified as a scalar field, a
vector field, a spinor field or a tensor field
according to whether the represented
physical quantity is a scalar, a vector, a
spinor, or a tensor, respectively. A field has
a consistent tensorial character wherever
it is defined: i.e. a field cannot be a scalar
field somewhere and a vector field
somewhere else. For example, the
Newtonian gravitational field is a vector
field: specifying its value at a point in
spacetime requires three numbers, the
components of the gravitational field
vector at that point. Moreover, within each
category (scalar, vector, tensor), a field can
be either a classical field or a quantum
field, depending on whether it is
characterized by numbers or quantum
operators respectively. In this theory an
equivalent representation of field is a field
particle, for instance a boson.[10]

History
To Isaac Newton, his law of universal
gravitation simply expressed the
gravitational force that acted between any
pair of massive objects. When looking at
the motion of many bodies all interacting
with each other, such as the planets in the
Solar System, dealing with the force
between each pair of bodies separately
rapidly becomes computationally
inconvenient. In the eighteenth century, a
new quantity was devised to simplify the
bookkeeping of all these gravitational
forces. This quantity, the gravitational field,
gave at each point in space the total
gravitational acceleration which would be
felt by a small object at that point. This did
not change the physics in any way: it did
not matter if all the gravitational forces on
an object were calculated individually and
then added together, or if all the
contributions were first added together as
a gravitational field and then applied to an
object.[11]
The development of the independent
concept of a field truly began in the
nineteenth century with the development
of the theory of electromagnetism. In the
early stages, André-Marie Ampère and
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb could
manage with Newton-style laws that
expressed the forces between pairs of
electric charges or electric currents.
However, it became much more natural to
take the field approach and express these
laws in terms of electric and magnetic
fields; in 1849 Michael Faraday became
the first to coin the term "field".[11]
The independent nature of the field
became more apparent with James Clerk
Maxwell's discovery that waves in these
fields propagated at a finite speed.
Consequently, the forces on charges and
currents no longer just depended on the
positions and velocities of other charges
and currents at the same time, but also on
their positions and velocities in the
past.[11]

Maxwell, at first, did not adopt the modern

concept of a field as a fundamental
quantity that could independently exist.
Instead, he supposed that the
electromagnetic field expressed the
deformation of some underlying medium—
the luminiferous aether—much like the
tension in a rubber membrane. If that were
the case, the observed velocity of the
electromagnetic waves should depend
upon the velocity of the observer with
respect to the aether. Despite much effort,
no experimental evidence of such an
effect was ever found; the situation was
resolved by the introduction of the special
theory of relativity by Albert Einstein in
1905. This theory changed the way the
viewpoints of moving observers were
related to each other. They became related
to each other in such a way that velocity of
electromagnetic waves in Maxwell's theory
would be the same for all observers. By
doing away with the need for a
background medium, this development
opened the way for physicists to start
thinking about fields as truly independent
entities.[11]

In the late 1920s, the new rules of

quantum mechanics were first applied to
the electromagnetic field. In 1927, Paul
Dirac used quantum fields to successfully
explain how the decay of an atom to a
lower quantum state led to the
spontaneous emission of a photon, the
quantum of the electromagnetic field. This
was soon followed by the realization
(following the work of Pascual Jordan,
Eugene Wigner, Werner Heisenberg, and
Wolfgang Pauli) that all particles, including
electrons and protons, could be
understood as the quanta of some
quantum field, elevating fields to the
status of the most fundamental objects in
nature.[11] That said, John Wheeler and
Richard Feynman seriously considered
Newton's pre-field concept of action at a
distance (although they set it aside
because of the ongoing utility of the field
concept for research in general relativity
and quantum electrodynamics).
Classical fields
There are several examples of classical
fields. Classical field theories remain
useful wherever quantum properties do
not arise, and can be active areas of
research. Elasticity of materials, fluid
dynamics and Maxwell's equations are
cases in point.

Some of the simplest physical fields are

vector force fields. Historically, the first
time that fields were taken seriously was
with Faraday's lines of force when
describing the electric field. The
gravitational field was then similarly
described.

Newtonian gravitation

In classical gravitation, mass is the source of an attractive gravitational field g.

A classical field theory describing gravity

is Newtonian gravitation, which describes
the gravitational force as a mutual
interaction between two masses.
Any body with mass M is associated with
a gravitational field g which describes its
influence on other bodies with mass. The
gravitational field of M at a point r in space
corresponds to the ratio between force F
that M exerts on a small or negligible test
mass m located at r and the test mass
itself:[12]

Stipulating that m is much smaller than M

ensures that the presence of m has a
negligible influence on the behavior of M.
According to Newton's law of universal
gravitation, F(r) is given by[12]

where is a unit vector lying along the line

joining M and m and pointing from M to m.
Therefore, the gravitational field of M is[12]

The experimental observation that inertial

mass and gravitational mass are equal to
an unprecedented level of accuracy leads
to the identity that gravitational field
strength is identical to the acceleration
experienced by a particle. This is the
starting point of the equivalence principle,
which leads to general relativity.

Because the gravitational force F is

conservative, the gravitational field g can
be rewritten in terms of the gradient of a
scalar function, the gravitational potential
Φ(r):

Electromagnetism

Michael Faraday first realized the

importance of a field as a physical
quantity, during his investigations into
magnetism. He realized that electric and
magnetic fields are not only fields of force
which dictate the motion of particles, but
also have an independent physical reality
because they carry energy.

These ideas eventually led to the creation,

by James Clerk Maxwell, of the first unified
field theory in physics with the introduction
of equations for the electromagnetic field.
The modern version of these equations is
called Maxwell's equations.

Electrostatics

A charged test particle with charge q

experiences a force F based solely on its
charge. We can similarly describe the
electric field E so that F = qE. Using this
and Coulomb's law tells us that the electric
field due to a single charged particle is

The electric field is conservative, and

hence can be described by a scalar
potential, V(r):

Magnetostatics

A steady current I flowing along a path ℓ

will create a field B, that exerts a force on
nearby moving charged particles that is
quantitatively different from the electric
field force described above. The force
exerted by I on a nearby charge q with
velocity v is

where B(r) is the magnetic field, which is

determined from I by the Biot–Savart law:

The magnetic field is not conservative in

general, and hence cannot usually be
written in terms of a scalar potential.
However, it can be written in terms of a
vector potential, A(r):
The E fields and B fields due to electric charges (black/white) and magnetic poles (red/blue).[13][14] Top: E field due to an
electric dipole moment d. Bottom left: B field due to a mathematical magnetic dipole m formed by two magnetic
monopoles. Bottom right: B field due to a pure magnetic dipole moment m found in ordinary matter (not from
monopoles).

Electrodynamics

In general, in the presence of both a

charge density ρ(r, t) and current density
J(r, t), there will be both an electric and a
magnetic field, and both will vary in time.
They are determined by Maxwell's
equations, a set of differential equations
which directly relate E and B to ρ and J.[15]

Alternatively, one can describe the system

in terms of its scalar and vector potentials
V and A. A set of integral equations known
as retarded potentials allow one to
calculate V and A from ρ and J,[note 1] and
from there the electric and magnetic fields
are determined via the relations[16]

At the end of the 19th century, the

electromagnetic field was understood as a
collection of two vector fields in space.
Nowadays, one recognizes this as a single
antisymmetric 2nd-rank tensor field in
spacetime.

The E fields and B fields due to electric charges (black/white) and magnetic poles (red/blue).[13][14] E fields due to
stationary electric charges and B fields due to stationary magnetic charges (note in nature N and S monopoles do not
exist). In motion (velocity v), an electric charge induces a B field while a magnetic charge (not found in nature) would
induce an E field. Conventional current is used.
Gravitation in general relativity

In general relativity, mass-energy warps space time (Einstein tensor G),[17] and rotating asymmetric mass-energy
distributions with angular momentum J generate GEM fields H[18]

Einstein's theory of gravity, called general

relativity, is another example of a field
theory. Here the principal field is the metric
tensor, a symmetric 2nd-rank tensor field
in spacetime. This replaces Newton's law
of universal gravitation.
Waves as fields

Waves can be constructed as physical

fields, due to their finite propagation speed
and causal nature when a simplified
physical model of an isolated closed
system is set. They are also subject to the
inverse-square law.

For electromagnetic waves, there are

optical fields, and terms such as near- and
far-field limits for diffraction. In practice
though, the field theories of optics are
superseded by the electromagnetic field
theory of Maxwell.
Quantum fields
It is now believed that quantum mechanics
should underlie all physical phenomena,
so that a classical field theory should, at
least in principle, permit a recasting in
quantum mechanical terms; success
yields the corresponding quantum field
theory. For example, quantizing classical
electrodynamics gives quantum
electrodynamics. Quantum
electrodynamics is arguably the most
successful scientific theory; experimental
data confirm its predictions to a higher
precision (to more significant digits) than
any other theory.[19] The two other
fundamental quantum field theories are
quantum chromodynamics and the
electroweak theory.

Fields due to color charges, like in quarks (G is the gluon field strength tensor). These are "colorless" combinations. Top:
Color charge has "ternary neutral states" as well as binary neutrality (analogous to electric charge). Bottom: The
quark/antiquark combinations.[13][14]

In quantum chromodynamics, the color

field lines are coupled at short distances
by gluons, which are polarized by the field
and line up with it. This effect increases
within a short distance (around 1 fm from
the vicinity of the quarks) making the color
force increase within a short distance,
confining the quarks within hadrons. As
the field lines are pulled together tightly by
gluons, they do not "bow" outwards as
much as an electric field between electric
charges.[20]

These three quantum field theories can all

be derived as special cases of the so-
called standard model of particle physics.
General relativity, the Einsteinian field
theory of gravity, has yet to be successfully
quantized. However an extension, thermal
field theory, deals with quantum field
theory at finite temperatures, something
seldom considered in quantum field
theory.

In BRST theory one deals with odd fields,

e.g. Faddeev–Popov ghosts. There are
different descriptions of odd classical
fields both on graded manifolds and
supermanifolds.

As above with classical fields, it is

possible to approach their quantum
counterparts from a purely mathematical
view using similar techniques as before.
The equations governing the quantum
fields are in fact PDEs (specifically,
relativistic wave equations (RWEs)). Thus
one can speak of Yang–Mills, Dirac, Klein–
Gordon and Schrödinger fields as being
solutions to their respective equations. A
possible problem is that these RWEs can
deal with complicated mathematical
objects with exotic algebraic properties
(e.g. spinors are not tensors, so may need
calculus for spinor fields), but these in
theory can still be subjected to analytical
methods given appropriate mathematical
generalization.

Field theory
Field theory usually refers to a
construction of the dynamics of a field, i.e.,
a specification of how a field changes with
time or with respect to other independent
physical variables on which the field
depends. Usually this is done by writing a
Lagrangian or a Hamiltonian of the field,
and treating it as a classical or quantum
mechanical system with an infinite number
of degrees of freedom. The resulting field
theories are referred to as classical or
quantum field theories.

The dynamics of a classical field are

usually specified by the Lagrangian density
in terms of the field components; the
dynamics can be obtained by using the
action principle.
It is possible to construct simple fields
without any prior knowledge of physics
using only mathematics from multivariable
calculus, potential theory and partial
differential equations (PDEs). For example,
scalar PDEs might consider quantities
such as amplitude, density and pressure
fields for the wave equation and fluid
dynamics; temperature/concentration
fields for the heat/diffusion equations.
Outside of physics proper (e.g., radiometry
and computer graphics), there are even
light fields. All these previous examples
are scalar fields. Similarly for vectors,
there are vector PDEs for displacement,
velocity and vorticity fields in (applied
mathematical) fluid dynamics, but vector
calculus may now be needed in addition,
being calculus for vector fields (as are
these three quantities, and those for vector
PDEs in general). More generally problems
in continuum mechanics may involve for
example, directional elasticity (from which
comes the term tensor, derived from the
Latin word for stretch), complex fluid flows
or anisotropic diffusion, which are framed
as matrix-tensor PDEs, and then require
matrices or tensor fields, hence matrix or
tensor calculus. The scalars (and hence
the vectors, matrices and tensors) can be
real or complex as both are fields in the
abstract-algebraic/ring-theoretic sense.
In a general setting, classical fields are
described by sections of fiber bundles and
their dynamics is formulated in the terms
of jet manifolds (covariant classical field
theory).[21]

In modern physics, the most often studied

fields are those that model the four
fundamental forces which one day may
lead to the Unified Field Theory.

Symmetries of fields

A convenient way of classifying a field

(classical or quantum) is by the
symmetries it possesses. Physical
symmetries are usually of two types:

Spacetime symmetries

Fields are often classified by their

behaviour under transformations of
spacetime. The terms used in this
classification are:

scalar fields (such as temperature)

whose values are given by a single
variable at each point of space. This
value does not change under
transformations of space.
vector fields (such as the magnitude
and direction of the force at each point
in a magnetic field) which are specified
by attaching a vector to each point of
space. The components of this vector
transform between themselves
contravariantly under rotations in space.
Similarly, a dual (or co-) vector field
attaches a dual vector to each point of
space, and the components of each dual
vector transform covariantly.
tensor fields, (such as the stress tensor
of a crystal) specified by a tensor at
each point of space. Under rotations in
space, the components of the tensor
transform in a more general way which
 depends on the number of covariant
indices and contravariant indices.
spinor fields (such as the Dirac spinor)
arise in quantum field theory to describe
particles with spin which transform like
vectors except for one of their
components; in other words, when one
rotates a vector field 360 degrees
around a specific axis, the vector field
turns to itself; however, spinors would
turn to their negatives in the same case.
Internal symmetries

Fields may have internal symmetries in

addition to spacetime symmetries. In
many situations, one needs fields which
are a list of spacetime scalars: (φ1, φ2, ...
φN). For example, in weather prediction
these may be temperature, pressure,
humidity, etc. In particle physics, the color
symmetry of the interaction of quarks is
an example of an internal symmetry, that
of the strong interaction. Other examples
are isospin, weak isospin, strangeness and
any other flavour symmetry.

If there is a symmetry of the problem, not

involving spacetime, under which these
components transform into each other,
then this set of symmetries is called an
internal symmetry. One may also make a
classification of the charges of the fields
under internal symmetries.

Statistical field theory

Statistical field theory attempts to extend

the field-theoretic paradigm toward many-
body systems and statistical mechanics.
As above, it can be approached by the
usual infinite number of degrees of
freedom argument.

Much like statistical mechanics has some

overlap between quantum and classical
mechanics, statistical field theory has
links to both quantum and classical field
theories, especially the former with which
it shares many methods. One important
example is mean field theory.

Continuous random fields

Classical fields as above, such as the

electromagnetic field, are usually infinitely
differentiable functions, but they are in any
case almost always twice differentiable. In
contrast, generalized functions are not
continuous. When dealing carefully with
classical fields at finite temperature, the
mathematical methods of continuous
random fields are used, because thermally
fluctuating classical fields are nowhere
differentiable. Random fields are indexed
sets of random variables; a continuous
random field is a random field that has a
set of functions as its index set. In
particular, it is often mathematically
convenient to take a continuous random
field to have a Schwartz space of
functions as its index set, in which case
the continuous random field is a tempered
distribution.

We can think about a continuous random

field, in a (very) rough way, as an ordinary
function that is almost everywhere,
but such that when we take a weighted
average of all the infinities over any finite
region, we get a finite result. The infinities
are not well-defined; but the finite values
can be associated with the functions used
as the weight functions to get the finite
values, and that can be well-defined. We
can define a continuous random field well
enough as a linear map from a space of
functions into the real numbers.

See also
Conformal field theory
Covariant Hamiltonian field theory
Field strength
History of the philosophy of field theory
 Lagrangian and Eulerian specification of
a field
Scalar field theory
Velocity field

Notes
1. This is contingent on the correct choice of
gauge. V and A are not completely
determined by ρ and J; rather, they are only
determined up to some scalar function f(r,
t) known as the gauge. The retarded
potential formalism requires one to choose
the Lorenz gauge.

References
1. John Gribbin (1998). Q is for Quantum:
 Particle Physics from A to Z. London:
Weidenfeld & Nicolson. p. 138. ISBN 0-297-
81752-3.

2. Richard Feynman (1970). The Feynman

Lectures on Physics Vol II (https://feynmanl
ectures.caltech.edu/II_01.html#Ch1-S2) .
Addison Wesley Longman. ISBN 978-0-201-
02115-8. "A 'field' is any physical quantity
which takes on different values at different
points in space."
3. Ernan McMullin (2002). "The Origins of the
Field Concept in Physics" (http://physics.g
mu.edu/~rubinp/courses/416/pip_fields.pd
f) (PDF). Phys. Perspect. 4 (1): 13–39.
Bibcode:2002PhP.....4...13M (https://ui.ads
abs.harvard.edu/abs/2002PhP.....4...13M) .
doi:10.1007/s00016-002-8357-5 (https://do
i.org/10.1007%2Fs00016-002-8357-5) .
S2CID 27691986 (https://api.semanticscho
lar.org/CorpusID:27691986) .

4. SE, Windyty. "Windy as forecasted" (https://

www.windy.com/) . Windy.com/. Retrieved
2021-06-25.

5. Lecture 1 | Quantum Entanglements, Part 1

(Stanford) (https://youtube.com/watch?v=0
Eeuqh9QfNI&t=1139) , Leonard Susskind,
Stanford, Video, 2006-09-25.
6. Richard P. Feynman (1970). The Feynman
Lectures on Physics Vol I (https://feynmanl
ectures.caltech.edu/I_02.html) . Addison
Wesley Longman.

7. Richard P. Feynman (1970). The Feynman

Lectures on Physics Vol II (https://feynmanl
ectures.caltech.edu/II_04.html) . Addison
Wesley Longman.

8. John Archibald Wheeler (1998). Geons,

Black Holes, and Quantum Foam: A Life in
Physics (https://archive.org/details/geonsb
lackholesq00whee) . London: Norton.
p. 163 (https://archive.org/details/geonsbla
ckholesq00whee/page/163) .
ISBN 9780393046427.
 9. Richard P. Feynman (1970). The Feynman
Lectures on Physics Vol I (https://feynmanl
ectures.caltech.edu/I_10.html) . Addison
Wesley Longman.

10. Steven Weinberg (November 7, 2013).

"Physics: What We Do and Don't Know" (htt
p://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/20
13/nov/07/physics-what-we-do-and-dont-kn
ow/) . New York Review of Books.

11. Weinberg, Steven (1977). "The Search for

Unity: Notes for a History of Quantum Field
Theory". Daedalus. 106 (4): 17–35.
JSTOR 20024506 (https://www.jstor.org/st
able/20024506) .

12. Kleppner, Daniel; Kolenkow, Robert. An

Introduction to Mechanics. p. 85.
13. Parker, C.B. (1994). McGraw Hill
Encyclopaedia of Physics (https://archive.o
rg/details/mcgrawhillencycl1993park)
(2nd ed.). Mc Graw Hill. ISBN 0-07-051400-
3.

14. M. Mansfield; C. O’Sullivan (2011).

Understanding Physics (4th ed.). John
Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-47-0746370.

15. Griffiths, David. Introduction to

Electrodynamics (3rd ed.). p. 326.

16. Wangsness, Roald. Electromagnetic Fields

(2nd ed.). p. 469.

17. J.A. Wheeler; C. Misner; K.S. Thorne (1973).

Gravitation. W.H. Freeman & Co. ISBN 0-
7167-0344-0.
18. I. Ciufolini; J.A. Wheeler (1995). Gravitation
and Inertia. Princeton Physics Series.
ISBN 0-691-03323-4.

19. Peskin, Michael E.; Schroeder, Daniel V.

(1995). An Introduction to Quantum Fields
(https://archive.org/details/introductiontoq
u0000pesk/page/198) . Westview Press.
p. 198 (https://archive.org/details/introduct
iontoqu0000pesk/page/198) . ISBN 0-201-
50397-2.. Also see precision tests of QED.
20. R. Resnick; R. Eisberg (1985). Quantum
Physics of Atoms, Molecules, Solids, Nuclei
and Particles (https://archive.org/details/q
uantumphysicsof00eisb/page/684)
(2nd ed.). John Wiley & Sons. p. 684 (http
s://archive.org/details/quantumphysicsof0
0eisb/page/684) . ISBN 978-0-471-87373-
0.

21. Giachetta, G., Mangiarotti, L., Sardanashvily,

G. (2009) Advanced Classical Field Theory.
Singapore: World Scientific, ISBN 978-981-
283-895-7 (arXiv:0811.0331 (https://arxiv.or
g/abs/0811.0331) )

Further reading
"Fields". Principles of Physical Science.
Encyclopædia Britannica (Macropaedia).
Vol. 25 (15th ed.). 1994. p. 815.
Landau, Lev D. and Lifshitz, Evgeny M.
(1971). Classical Theory of Fields (3rd
ed.). London: Pergamon. ISBN 0-08-
016019-0. Vol. 2 of the Course of
Theoretical Physics.
Jepsen, Kathryn (July 18, 2013). "Real
talk: Everything is made of fields" (http://
www.symmetrymagazine.org/sites/defa
ult/files/pdf-cache/pdf_views/pdf_1/d4
de115572451d8eb544faa6e2f21379/Re
al%20talk%3A%20Everything%20is%20
made%20of%20fields.pdf) (PDF).
Symmetry Magazine.
External links
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