ELECTRIC FIELDS

Electrostatics

Charge is the property of matter that causes it to produce and

experience electrical and magnetic effects. The study of the electrical charges at
rest is called electrostatics. When both electrical and magnetic effects are
present, the interaction between charges is referred to as electromagnetic.

Properties of Charge

(1) Quantization of Charge : Electric charge can have only discrete values,
rather than any value. That is, charge is quantized. The smallest discrete value
of charge that can exist in nature is the charge on an electron, given as

e = ± 1.6 x 10- 19 C

This is the charge attained by an electron and a proton.

A charge q must be an integral multiple of this basic unit. That is,

Q = ± ne where n = 1, 2, …

(2) Charge is Always Associated with Mass : A charge cannot exist without
mass, though a mass can exist without charge. The particles such
as photon or neutrino have no (rest) mass. Hence, these particles can never have
a charge.
The mass of a body (slightly) increases when it acquires a negative charge (by
gaining some electrons). On the other hand, when a body acquires a positive
charge (by losing some electrons), its mass (slightly) decreases.

(3) Conservation of Charge : In an isolated system, the total charge remains

constant. In other words, charge can neither be created nor destroyed. It can be
transferred from one body to the other. Or, equal amounts of positive or
negative charges can appear or disappear. This is what happens in pair
production and pair annihilation, as shown in figure.

(4) Invariance of Charge : Numerical value of a charge is independent of the

frame of reference. It means the value of charge on a body remains the same,
whether it is stationary, or moving with a constant velocity or accelerating. In
contrast, the mass of a body depends on its speed, and it decreases with increase
in speed.
A rod of plastic rubbed with fur or a rod of glass rubbed with silk will attract
small pieces of paper and is said to be electrically charged. The charge on
plastic rubbed with fur is defined as negative, and the charge on glass rubbed
with silk is defined as positive.

The SI Unit of charge is coulomb (C). In SI units, the current is a fundamental

quantity, having a unit of ampere (A). The unit of charge is defined in terms of
the unit of current. Thus, one coulomb is the charge transferred in one second
across the section of a wire carrying a current of one ampere.

Electric charge

Electrically charged objects have several important characteristics:

 Like charges repel one another; that is, positive repels positive and
negative repels negative.
 Unlike charges attract each another; that is, positive attracts negative.
 Charge is conserved. A neutral object has no net charge. If the plastic
rod and fur are initially neutral, when the rod becomes charged by the
fur, a negative charge is transferred from the fur to the rod. The net
negative charge on the rod is equal to the net positive charge on the
fur.

A conductor is a material through which electric charges can easily

flow. An insulator is a material through which electric charges do not
move easily, if at all.

An electroscope is a simple device used to indicate the existence and

the magnitude of a charge (the figure is attached). The electroscope
consists of a conducting knob and attached lightweight conducting leaves—
commonly made of gold foil or aluminum foil. When a charged object touches
the knob, the like charges repel and force the leaves apart. The electroscope
will indicate the presence of charge but does not directly indicate whether the
charge is positive or negative.
A large charge near a neutral electroscope can make the leaves move
apart. The electroscope is made of conducting material, so the positive
charges are attracted to the knob by the nearby (but not touching)
negatively charged rod. The leaves are left with a negative charge and
therefore deflect. When the negative rod is removed, the leaves will fall.

Now, consider touching the electroscope knob with a finger while the
charged rod is nearby. The electrons will be repulsed and flow out of the
electroscope through the hand. If the hand is removed while the charged
rod is still close, the electroscope will retain a charge. This method of
charging is called charging by induction

When an object is rubbed with a charged rod, the object shares the
charge so that both have a charge of the same sign. In contrast,
charging by induction gives an object the charge opposite that of the
charged rod.

Even though the charges are not free to travel throughout the material,
insulators can be charged by induction. A large charge nearby—not
touching—will induce an opposite charge on the surface of the insulator,
the negative and positive charges of the molecules are displaced
slightly. This realignment of charges in the insulator produces an
effective induced charge.

Coulomb's law

Coulomb's law gives the magnitude of the electrostatic force ( F)

between two charges:
where q 1 and q 2 are the charges, r is the distance between them,
and k is the proportionality constant. The SI unit for charge is the
coulomb. If the charge is in coulombs and the separation in meters, the
following approximate value for k will give the force in newtons: k = 9.0 ×
10 9 N · m 2/C 2. The direction of the electrostatic force depends upon
the signs of the charges. Like charges repel, and unlike charges attract.

Coulomb's law can also be expressed in terms of another constant (ε 0),

known as the permittivity of free space:

When the permittivity constant is used, Coulomb's law is

The most fundamental electric charge is the charge of one proton or one
electron. This value (e) is e = 1.602 × 10 −19 coulombs. It takes about
6.24 × 10 18 excess electrons to equal the charge of one coulomb; thus,
it is a very large static charge.

For a system of charges, the forces between each set of charges must
be found; then, the net force on a given charge is the vector sum of
these forces. The following problem illustrates this procedure.

Important Points Regarding Coulomb’s Law

(1) Charges are Assumed to be at Rest : When charges are in

motion they also produce and experience magnetic forces.

(2) Charges are Assumed to be on Point Particles : Coulomb’s law

cannot be directly applied to a finite charge distribution. In such a case
(see figure), it is not possible to definitely specify the separation between
the charges. However, there is an exception. When the charge is
distributed uniformly over a spherical surface, the force on a point
charge outside the surface may be computed from Coulomb’s law by
treating the charge on the sphere as if it were concentrated at the
centre.

Principle of Superposition

The coulomb’s law obeys the principle of superposition. It means that

the force between two particles is not affected by the presence of other
charges. This principle is used to find the net force exerted on a given
charged particle by other charged particles.
The force on a charged particle q1 due to point charges q2, q3 and q4 is
the resultant of forces due to individual point charges, i.e.,
F 1=F 12+F 13+F 14
Note that the notation represents the force on q1 due to q2.

How to Solve a Problem using Coulomb’s Law ?

(1) Decide whether the force due to a given charge

is attractive or repulsive and show it by drawing vector,
pointing towards or away from the given charge, respectively.
(2) Find the magnitude of the force using Coulomb’s law---ignoring the
signs of the charges.
(3) Resolve the forces along the given co-ordinate axes and express
them in vector form using i^,j^,k^ unit vector notation, unless otherwise
specified.
(4) Use the principle of superposition to find the net force on the charge.
Electric fields and lines of force

When a small positive test charge is brought near a large positive

charge, it experiences a force directed away from the large charge. If the
test charge is far from the large charge, the electrostatic force given by
Coulomb's law is smaller than when it is near. This data of direction and
magnitude of an electrostatic force, due to a fixed charge or set of fixed
charges, constitutes an electrostatic field. The electric field is defined
as the force per unit charge exerted on a small positive test charge (q 0)
placed at that point. Mathematically,

Note that both the force and electric field are vector quantities. The test
charge is required to be small so that the field of the test charge does
not affect the field of the set charges being examined. The SI unit for
electric field is newtons per coulomb (N/C).

The rules for drawing electric field lines for any static configuration of
charges are
 The lines begin on positive charges and terminate on negative
charges.
 The number of lines drawn emerging from or terminating on a
charge is proportional to the magnitude of the charge.
 No two field lines ever cross in a charge‐free region. (Because the
tangent to the field line represents the direction of the resultant
force, only one line can be at every point.)
 The line approaches the conducting surface perpendicularly.

Electric flux

Electric flux is defined as the number of field lines that pass through a
given surface. In Figure , lines of electric flux emerging from a point
charge pass through an imaginary spherical surface with the charge at
its center.
This definition can be expressed as follows: Φ = ∑E · A, where Φ (the
Greek letter phi) is the electric flux, E is the electric field, and A is area
perpendicular to the field lines. Electric flux is measured in N · m 2 /
C 2 and is a scalar quantity. If the surface under consideration is not
perpendicular to the field lines, then the expression is Φ = ∑ EA cos θ.

In general terms, flux is the closed integral of the dot product of the
electric field vector and the vector ΔA. The direction of ΔA is the outward
drawn normal to the imaginary surface. Mathematically, Φ = ΦE · dA.
The accepted convention is that flux lines are positive if leaving a
surface and negative if entering a surface.

Gauss's law

Gauss's law provides a method to calculate any electric field; however,

its only practical use is for fields of highly symmetric distributions of fixed
charges. The law states that the net electric flux through any real or
imaginary closed surface is equal to the net electric charge enclosed
within that surface divided by ε. As a result, if no charge exists with a
given closed surface, then there are as many flux lines entering the
surface as there are leaving it. The imaginary surface necessary to apply
Gauss's law is called the gaussian surface. Algebraically,

or in integral form,

where θ is the angle between the direction of E and the outward

direction of normal to the surface and ε is the permittivity constant.

Consider the calculation of the electric field due to a point charge.

Figure shows the point charge, the direction of its field, and a gaussian
surface. Because the electric field is perpendicular to the gaussian
surface and directed outward, θ is 90 degrees, and cos θ = 1. Gauss's
law is

Substitute in the area of a sphere, and the left side reduces to

or

which is the same expression obtained from Coulomb's law and the
definition of electric field in terms of force.

The derivation of the expression for the field due to a thin conducting
shell of charge follows. Figure 8 shows the electric fields for (a) a shell of
radius ( R), (b) the gaussian surface for outside the shell, and (c) the
gaussian surface for inside the shell (c) of radius ( r).

When outside the shell of charge, the left side of Gauss's equation
reduces to the following expression for the same reasons given for a
point charge:

Therefore,
Thus, the electric field outside a sphere of charge is the same as if the
same amount of charge were concentrated in a point located at the
center of the sphere.

The gaussian surface inside the sphere encloses no charge, and

therefore, there is no electric field inside the uniformly charged spherical
shell. The same proof holds within a solid conductor because all the
charge of the conductor resides on the surface. Because the electric
field inside even an irregularly shaped conductor is zero, the charge will
not be evenly distributed over an irregular shape. The charge will tend to
accumulate on protruding points on the outside of the conductor.

Potential difference and equipotential surfaces

In the preceding examples, the charge distributions were spherical, and

so the gaussian surface was a sphere. When finding the electric field of
either a sheet of charge or a line of charge, a cylinder is the correct
gaussian surface to use.