Electromagnetic Scattering by a Moving Conducting Sphere

A relativistically correct expression for the far zone electromagnetic field scattered by a perfectly conducting sphere, moving with constant velocity, through an incident plane wave is developed. It is seen that if the scattered field is expressed in a special “retarded” coordinate system, a result that is more tractible, allowing physical interpretation, is obtained. When the field is expressed in this way, the expected first‐order effects are manifest, yet the higher order effects are also present. This solution may be directly applied to the finite bodies with more complicated shapes than the sphere. For the case of the sphere it is found that the form of the scattered field allows the calculation of the scattering cross section, the total scattering cross section, and the rate of exchange of electromagnetic and mechanical energies.