Physics 1

Voronkov Vladimir Vasilyevich

 Lecture 8
 Electrostatics
 Electric charge
 Coulomb’s law
 Electric field
 Gauss’ law
 Electric potential
 Electric Forces
Electric forces are dominant in the behavior
of matter. The electric forces are
responsible for:
 Electrons, binding to a positive nucleus,
forming a stable atom;
 Atoms, binding together into molecules;
 Molecules binding together into liquids and
solids;
 All chemical reactions;
 All biological processes.
 Friction and other contact forces.
 Electrostatics

 Electrostatics is the science of

stationary charges.
 There exist two types of charges –
positive and negative.
 If an object has an excess of
electrons, it is negatively charged; if it
has a deficiency of electrons, it is
positively charged.
 Like charges repel, and unlike charges
attract.
 Charging by induction
(a) We have a neutrally charged
conductor.
(b) Negatively charged rod polarizes
the sphere. The charge in the rod
repels electrons to the opposite
side of the sphere.
(c) Then we ground the sphere and
some part of electrons is repelled
into the Earth. There is induced
positive charge near the rod.
(d) Then ground connection is
removed.
(e) Eventually, we get positively
charged sphere.
 The Law of Conservation
of Charge
 The net charge of an isolated
system is conserved.
 This law is a fundamental physical
law: net charge is the same
before and after any interaction.
 Elementary charges

 Elementary charges are electrons and protons. Usually

only electrons can be free and take part in electrical
processes.
 Excess of electrons causes negative charge and
deficiency of electrons causes positive charge of a
body.
 Coulomb’s law
 From Coulomb’s experiments, we can
generalize the following properties of the
electric force between two stationary point
charges:
– is inversely proportional to the square of the
separation r between the particles and directed
along the line joining them;
– is proportional to the product of the charges q1
and q2 on the two particles;
– is attractive if the charges are of opposite sign
and repulsive if the charges have the same sign;
– is a conservative force.
 Coulomb’s Law
• The magnitude of the electric force is

• is the Coulomb
constant, it can be written in the following form:

• where is the
electric permittivity of free space.
In a vector form, the force exerted by charge q 1 on q2 is:

Where r̂ is a unit vector directed from q 1 to q2.

(a) two similar charges repel

(b) two different charges attract

 Forces of Multiple Charges
Electrostatic force is a vector quantity, so in the case of
multiple charges the principle of superposition is
applicable:

The total force on charge q2 is the

vector sum of all forces:
 Electric Field
 In general: field forces can act through
space, producing an effect even when no
physical contact occurs between interacting
objects.
 Charges gives rise to an electric field.
 The electric field can be detected at any
particular point by a small test positive
charge qo and observing if it experiences a
force. Then the electric field vector is:

 Note: force Fe and field E are not produced

by the test charge q .
 Electric Field Vector
 The force exerted by q on the test charge q0 is:

 Then dividing it by q0 we get the electric field

vector:

 Electric field is created by a charge.

 If a charge is positive then the electric field
vector is directed away from the source charge.
 If a charge is negative then the electric field
vector is directed to the source charge.
 Continuous Charge Distribution

• Volume charge density

• Surface charge density

• Linear charge density

 Electric Field of a Uniformly
Charged ring
• A ring of radius a carries a uniformly
distributed positive total charge Q. Let’s find
the electric field due to the ring along the
central axis perpendicular to the plane of the
ring.
 dE is the field at point P
on the x axis due to an
element of charge dq. dE has two
perpendicular
components:
EX and E.

Using the symmetry:

The
perpendicular component of the
field at P due to segment 1 is
canceled by the perpendicular
component due to segment 2.
Thus the total E is
directed along x axis.
 The distance from a charge dq to point
P:

Then the contribution of a

charge dq to electric field E at
point P is:

All segments of the ring make the same contribution to the

field at P because they are all equidistant from this point.
Thus, we can integrate to obtain the total field at P:
 Extreme Case Analysis
• So we found the electric field of a uniformly charged ring along its
symmetry axis at distance x from the centre of a ring:

ke is the Coulomb constant, a – the ring’s radius, Q – the charge of the

ring.
• Let’s analyze the obtained result for extreme cases:
1. If x=0, then E=0.
2. If x>>a, then we get the Coulomb formula for a point charge:

Q
E  ke 2
•
r
Look more examples of calculating electric field for continuous charge
distribution:
– in Serway p.721-723,
– Fishbane 642-647.
 Gauss’ Law
 The net flux of electric field through any
enclosed surface is equal to the net charge
inside that surface divided by permittivity of
free space.

 Here E·dA is a scalar product of electric field

and differential of area vectors.
 Electric Flux
Ai is a vector, which magnitude represents the
area of the i-th element of the surface and
direction is defined to be perpendicular to the
surface element.
The variation in the electric field over one
element of surface can be neglected if the
element is sufficiently small.

The electric flux through this element is

Field lines directed into a closed surface are considered negative; those directed out of a closed surface are positive.
• According to the Gauss’
theorem electric flux through
any surface S1, S2, S3 is the
same.

• Electric flux from a charge

located outside a surface
equals zero. The number of
lines entering the surface
equals the number leaving
the surface and the net
number equals zero.
 Electric Potential Energy
 For infinitesimal displacement ds the work
done by the electric field on the charge is
.
 Then the change in the potential energy of
the charge-field system is

 Thus for finite displacement from A to B the

change in potential energy is

 This line integral is not path-dependant, as

the electric force is conservative.
 Electric Potential
 The electric potential at any point in
an electric field is

 The potential difference V=VB - VA

between two points A and B in an
electric field is defined as

q0 is a test charge.
 Potential Properties
 Just as with potential energy, only
differences in electric potential are
meaningful.
 Electric potential is a scalar characteristic
of an electric field, independent of any
charges that may be placed in the electric
field.
 Electric potential energy depends on the
magnitude of the charge, interacting with
the field.
 Units in SI
 Charge Q C (Coulomb)
 Electric potential V J/C=V (volt)
 Electric field E N/C=V/m