CHAPTER21

Electric Charge The strength of a particle's electrical interaction with objects around it depends on its
electric charge, which can be either positive or negative. Charges with the same sign repel each other,
and charges with opposite signs attract each other. An object with equal amounts of the two kinds of
charge is electrically neutral, whereas one with an imbalance is electrically charged.
Conductors are materials in which a significant number of charged particles (electrons in metals) are
free to move. The charged particles in nonconductors, or insulators, are not free to move.

The Coulomb and Ampere The SI unit of charge is the coulomb (C). It is defined in terms of the unit of
current, the ampere (A), as the charge passing a particular point in 1 second when there is a current of 1
ampere at that point:



This is based on the relation between current i and the rate dq/dt at which charge passes a point:


(21-3)


Coulomb's Law Coulomb's law describes the electrostatic force between small (point) electric charges q
1

and q
2
at rest (or nearly at rest) and separated by a distance r:


(21-4)

Here
0
= 8.85 10
-12
C
2
/N m
2
is the permittivity constant, and 1/4
0
= k = 8.99 10
9
N m
2
/C
2
.

The force of attraction or repulsion between point charges at rest acts along the line joining the two
charges. If more than two charges are present, Eq. 21-4 holds for each pair of charges. The net force on
each charge is then found, using the superposition principle, as the vector sum of the forces exerted on
the charge by all the others.
The two shell theorems for electrostatics are

A shell of uniform charge attracts or repels a charged particle that is outside the shell as if all the shell's
charge were concentrated at its center.

If a charged particle is located inside a shell of uniform charge, there is no net electrostatic force on the
particle from the shell.


The Elementary Charge Electric charge is quantized: any charge can be written as ne, where n is a
positive or negative integer and e is a constant of nature called the elementary charge ( 1.602 10
-19

C). Electric charge is conserved: the net charge of any isolated system cannot change.
CHAPTER 22
Electric Field To explain the electrostatic force between two charges, we assume that each charge sets
up an electric field in the space around it. The force acting on each charge is then due to the electric
field set up at its location by the other charge.
Definition of Electric Field The electric field at any point is defined in terms of the electrostatic force
that would be exerted on a positive test charge q
0
placed there:


(22-1)

Electric Field Lines Electric field lines provide a means for visualizing the direction and magnitude of
electric fields. The electric field vector at any point is tangent to a field line through that point. The
density of field lines in any region is proportional to the magnitude of the electric field in that region.
Field lines originate on positive charges and terminate on negative charges.
Field Due to a Point Charge The magnitude of the electric field set up by a point charge q
at a distance r from the charge is


(22-3)

The direction of is away from the point charge if the charge is positive and toward it if the charge is
negative.
Field Due to an Electric Dipole An electric dipole consists of two particles with charges of equal
magnitude q but opposite sign, separated by a small distance d. Their electric dipole moment has
magnitude qd and points from the negative charge to the positive charge. The magnitude of the electric
field set up by the dipole at a distant point on the dipole axis (which runs through both charges) is


(22-9)

where z is the distance between the point and the center of the dipole.
Field Due to a Continuous Charge Distribution The electric field due to a continuous charge distribution
is found by treating charge elements as point charges and then summing, via integration, the electric
field vectors produced by all the charge elements to find the net vector.
Force on a Point Charge in an Electric Field When a point charge q is placed in an external electric field
, the electrostatic force that acts on the point charge is


(22-28)

Force has the same direction as if q is positive and the opposite direction if q is negative.
Dipole in an Electric Field When an electric dipole of dipole moment is placed in an electric field ,
the field exerts a torque on the dipole:


(22-34)

The dipole has a potential energy U associated with its orientation in the field:


(22-38)

This potential energy is defined to be zero when is perpendicular to ; it is least (U = -pE) when is
aligned with and greatest (U = pE) when is directed opposite














CHAPTER 23
Gauss' Law Gauss' law and Coulomb's law are different ways of describing the relation between charge
and electric field in static situations. Gauss' law is


(23-6)

in which q
enc
is the net charge inside an imaginary closed surface (a Gaussian surface) and is the net
flux of the electric field through the surface:


(23-7)

Coulomb's law can be derived from Gauss' law.
Applications of Gauss' Law Using Gauss' law and, in some cases, symmetry arguments, we can derive
several important results in electrostatic situations. Among these are:

1. An excess charge on an isolated conductor is located entirely on the outer surface of the
conductor.

2. The external electric field near the surface of a charged conductor is perpendicular to the surface
and has magnitude


(23-11)

Within the conductor, E = 0.

3. The electric field at any point due to an infinite line of charge with uniform linear charge density
is perpendicular to the line of charge and has magnitude


(23-12)

where r is the perpendicular distance from the line of charge to the point.

4. The electric field due to an infinite nonconducting sheet with uniform surface charge density is
perpendicular to the plane of the sheet and has magnitude


(23-13)


5. The electric field outside a spherical shell of charge with radius R and total charge q is directed
radially and has magnitude


(23-15)

Here r is the distance from the center of the shell to the point at which E is measured. (The charge
behaves, for external points, as if it were all located at the center of the sphere.) The field inside a
uniform spherical shell of charge is exactly zero:


(23-16)


6. The electric field inside a uniform sphere of charge is directed radially and has magnitude


(23-20)

22-5 The Electric Field Due to an Electric Dipole

Figure 22-8a shows two charged particles of magnitude q but of opposite sign, separated by a
distance d. As was noted in connection with Fig. 22-5, we call this configuration an electric dipole.
Let us find the electric field due to the dipole of Fig. 22-8a at a point P, a distance z from the
midpoint of the dipole and on the axis through the particles, which is called the dipole axis.







Figure 22-8
(a) An electric dipole. The electric field vectors and at point P on
the dipole axis result from the dipole's two charges. Point P is at distances
r
(+)
and r
(-)
from the individual charges that make up the dipole. (b) The
dipole moment of the dipole points from the negative charge to the
positive charge.




From symmetry, the electric field at point Pand also the fields and due to the
separate charges that make up the dipolemust lie along the dipole axis, which we have taken to
be a z axis. Applying the superposition principle for electric fields, we find that the magnitude E of
the electric field at P is


(22-5)

After a little algebra, we can rewrite this equation as


(22-6)

After forming a common denominator and multiplying its terms, we come to


(22-7)


We are usually interested in the electrical effect of a dipole only at distances that are large
compared with the dimensions of the dipolethat is, at distances such that z d. At such large
distances, we have d/2z 1 in Eq. 22-7. Thus, in our approximation, we can neglect the d/2z term
in the denominator, which leaves us with


(22-8)


The product qd, which involves the two intrinsic properties q and d of the dipole, is the magnitude
p of a vector quantity known as the electric dipole moment of the dipole. (The unit of is the
coulomb-meter.) Thus, we can write Eq. 22-8 as







(22-9)

The direction of is taken to be from the negative to the positive end of the dipole, as indicated in
Fig. 22-8b. We can use the direction of to specify the orientation of a dipole.