Impedance of free space

Impedance of free space
In electromagnetism, the impedance of free space is a physical constant relating the magnitudes of the electric and magnetic fields of electromagnetic radiation travelling through free space. That is,
where is the electric field strength and is the magnetic field strength. Its presently accepted value is
.
Where Ω is the ohm, the SI unit of electrical resistance. The impedance of free space (that is the wave impedance of a plane wave in free space) is equal to the product of the vacuum permeability and the speed of light in vacuum . Before 2019, the values of both these constants were taken to be exact (they were given in the definitions of the ampere and the metre respectively), and the value of the impedance of free space was therefore likewise taken to be exact. However, with the redefinition of the SI base units that came into force on 20 May 2019, the impedance of free space is subject to experimental measurement because only the speed of light in vacuum retains an exactly defined value.
Terminology
The analogous quantity for a plane wave travelling through a dielectric medium is called the intrinsic impedance of the medium, and designated (eta). Hence is sometimes referred to as the intrinsic impedance of free space, and given the symbol . It has numerous other synonyms, including:
wave impedance of free space,
the vacuum impedance,
intrinsic impedance of vacuum,
characteristic impedance of vacuum,
wave resistance of free space.
Relation to other constants
From the above definition, and the plane wave solution to Maxwell's equations,
where
is the magnetic constant, also known as the permeability of free space ≈ Henries/meter,
is the electric constant, also known as the permittivity of free space ≈ Farads/meter,
is the speed of light in free space.
is the elementary charge,
is the fine structure constant, and
is Planck's constant.
The reciprocal of is sometimes referred to as the admittance of free space and represented by the symbol .
Historical exact value
Between 1948 and 2019, the SI unit the ampere was defined by choosing the numerical value of to be exactly . Similarly, since 1983 the SI metre has been defined relative to the second by choosing the value of to be . Consequently until the 2019 redefinition,
exactly,
or
exactly,
or
This chain of dependencies changed when the ampere was redefined on 20 May 2019.
Approximation as 120π ohms
It is very common in textbooks and papers written before about 1990 to substitute the approximate value 120 ohms for . This is equivalent to taking the speed of light to be precisely in conjunction with the then-current definition of as . For example, Cheng 1989 states that the radiation resistance of a Hertzian dipole is
(result in ohms; not exact).
This practice may be recognized from the resulting discrepancy in the units of the given formula. Consideration of the units, or more formally dimensional analysis, may be used to restore the formula to a more exact form, in this case to
See also
Electromagnetic wave equation
Mathematical descriptions of the electromagnetic field
Near and far field
Sinusoidal plane-wave solutions of the electromagnetic wave equation
Space cloth
Vacuum
Wave impedance
References and notes
Further reading
Electromagnetism
Physical constants