Various Interpretations of the Stored and the Radiated Energy Density

Three contradictory but state-of-the-art concepts for defining and evaluating stored electromagnetic energy are treated in this communication, and are collated with the widely accepted definition of stored energy, which is the total energy minus the radiated energy. All three concepts are compared, and the results are discussed on an example of a dominant spherical mode, which is known to yield dissimilar results for the concepts dealt with here. It is shown that various definitions of stored energy density immanently imply diverse meanings of the term "radiation".