The work done by an external electromagnetic field.

Ehrenfest's theorem is used to derive the rate of change of kinetic energy induced by an external field. The expression for the power is valid for any electromagnetic field in arbitrary gauge. We discuss the applicable conditions for the Mott-Davis and Moseley-Lukes form of the Kubo-Greenwood formula (KGF) for the electrical conductivity which has been implemented in ab initio codes. We show that the conventional KGF does not satisfy gauge invariance, and is suitable only for computing the ac conductivity at sufficiently high frequency and when the gradient of the carrier density is small.