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    1. Gauss' law states that tex2html_wrap_inline152 . Thus

      eqnarray17

      using the expression for the divergence in cylindrical coordinates.

    2. First, we may simply integrate up the charge in the cylinder:

      eqnarray29

      Second, we may use Gauss's law for the cylinder:

      displaymath154

      Here the surface integral for flux goes over the surface enclosing the cylinder: that is, the surface including a cylindrical shell at s = S (with normal tex2html_wrap_inline158 ), a top circle at z=h (with normal tex2html_wrap_inline162 ), and a bottom circle at z = -h (with normal tex2html_wrap_inline166 ). Since tex2html_wrap_inline168 points radially outward (the tex2html_wrap_inline158 direction), the only part of the surface with nonzero tex2html_wrap_inline172 is the cylindrical shell, where tex2html_wrap_inline168 and the surface's normal vector align. Note that this surface is at constant s, so tex2html_wrap_inline168 is constant over the surface, and may be factored out of the integral. Thus Gauss' law gives

      displaymath180

      using the surface area for the cylinder (easily integrated, noting that tex2html_wrap_inline182 .) Plugging in the given tex2html_wrap_inline184 gives

      displaymath186

      in agreement with the direct integration above.

  1. See worked Griffiths example 2.3.
  2. See worked Griffiths example 2.4.
  3. See worked Griffiths example 2.5.
  4. The uniformly charged sphere has constant charge density tex2html_wrap_inline188 . tex2html_wrap_inline168 points in the radial direction, and depends only on r, by symmetry. We use Gauss' law with our Gaussian surface being the spherical shell at radius r. This surface has normal tex2html_wrap_inline196 , so

    displaymath198

    using the fact that tex2html_wrap_inline200 depends only on r and so is constant over the surface and can be factored out of the integral, and that the surface area of a sphere is tex2html_wrap_inline204 . We then set this equal to the charge enclosed divided by tex2html_wrap_inline206 . For tex2html_wrap_inline216 , tex2html_wrap_inline210 is constant within the sphere, so

    displaymath212

    where we've used the fact that the volume of the sphere of radius r is tex2html_wrap_inline216 . This gives

    displaymath226

    For tex2html_wrap_inline228 , tex2html_wrap_inline210 vanishes once r exceeds R so the volume integrand extends only to r=R, giving the volume of the charged sphere (alternately, precisely the full charge Q is enclosed). Thus

    displaymath232

    and

    displaymath242

    Note this is the expected result for the electric field outside a charge, and links continuously to the electric field value inside the charged sphere.

  5. We calculate the potential for the configuration in the previous problem, as

    displaymath236

    Since the electric field is radial, only radial elements of the path length contribute, giving

    displaymath238

    Here we just use our values for tex2html_wrap_inline168 above. For tex2html_wrap_inline228 ,

    displaymath244

    as expected outside a charge. For tex2html_wrap_inline216 , this gives

    eqnarray106

    which again links continuously to the value of V outside the sphere. We check that the gradient of V gives tex2html_wrap_inline252 :

    eqnarray131

    exactly in agreement with problem 5. I leave the plotting of V to the reader.




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Katherine Benson
Wed Apr 3 21:19:07 EST 2002