Measurement of the Abraham Force in a Barium Titanate Specimen

Abstract

Accurate measurements of the Abraham density force have been conducted in a BaTiO 3 ceramic for the first time. The measured torque amplitudes (in the order of 10 −10 Nm) were in good agreement with the predicted values inside the error limits of 10%. This conclusively rules out Minkowski's unsymmetric momentum-energy tensor for material media at low frequencies.