Lab report:

Oscillations of a dipole in a magnetic field

Foundations of Electromagnetism 7.5 hp Department of Physics 2012-03-13

Maria Duvaldt madu0011@student.umu.se Tobias Dahlberg toda0006@student.umu.se

Brief:

Innehllsfrteckning
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 2 Theory.............................................................................................................................................. 0 Experimental set up......................................................................................................................... 1 Method ............................................................................................................................................ 2 Calculations and Result ................................................................................................................... 3 Discussion ........................................................................................................................................ 3 References ....................................................................................................................................... 4

Appendix.................................................................................................................................................. 4

1. Introduction
The purpose of this experiment was to use two theoretical approaches, of different exactness, to find the angular frequency of the oscillations of a magnet trapped in the magnetic field created inside a Helmholtz coil. These values were later compared to the experimental values, this to see the differences between the two methods. The theory of this experiment was based on an article published by some guys at a university over in Spain. So because of the fact that there is quite a lot of theory behind this experiment we refer to this article for the full explanation of how the equations in the theory section were derived. In this report only the important results and ideas from their study of this phenomenon was used.

2. Theory
The theory behind this experiment is quite heavy and it is something that have been somewhat simplified in our version of it. REFERENCE TO ARTICLE In the aforementioned article the physicists have divided the experiment into two versions. The first of these approaches makes heavier use of simplifications and is as a result less accurate while the other is realistic and therefore more complicated.

The first approach

In this approach some approximations are made. First of all the magnet is viewed as a very small simple magnetic particle on the center axis of a Helmholtz coil. The coil in turn, is simplified into an infinitely thin perfect circle of radius R, see below.

Figur 1 - Approach 1

The method used to find the angular frequency, , of the magnet is to consider the potential energy of magnet in the field produced by the coil. This energy is then compared to the energy of an ordinary harmonic oscillator. This can be used to get the expression: ( )

Where M is the total mass of both magnet and glider, x is the offset of the magnet from the rest position, I is the current trough the coil and N is the number of turns in the coil. Through this the expression for the angular frequency in this approach can be found, it is as follows:

Where m is the magnetic dipole moment of the magnet.

The second approach

In this case the magnet is viewed as a rectangular object of length 2L, height 2a and depth 2b and the coil is a circle of radius R with a rectangular cross section of height 2l1 and width 2l2. See figure 2.

Figur 2 - Approach 2

The calculations needed to find in this case are quite extensive. Expressions for both the field created by the coil and the effects of this field on a magnet of finite size have to be found. The result of this is the rather heavy formula:

( (

) )

Where A-- and K- are the same as those above except for the difference that L+ is switched for L - . We also need a way to calculate the magnetic field, B, of the magnet. This can be done by using this expression:

)+

3. Experimental set up
The experimental set up is seen in figure #. A power supply was connected to a Helmholtz-coil. The exact current was measured by the multimeter. A glider is placed on an air track inside the coil. A magnet was placed on top of the glider. In figure # a Gaussmeter is seen. The magnet was placed in the groove at different distances from the measuring equipment.

4. Method
To find the angular frequency the time was measured for 10 oscillations, for currents between 2 to 5 A. The magnet and the glider were weighed.

5. Calculations and Result

To begin, the magnetic dipole moment is calculated. This can quite easily be done by dividing equation !! by m this theoretical quotient can then be plotted against our experimental values of B, see table in appendix. This leads to a linear plot with a slope that is equal to 1/m as seen in figure 3.

Figur 3 - Plot of B against B/m (lines are the standard deviation)

So by calculating the slope of this graph and dividing it by one, we get that m=0.71444 5.6885e-5 which by comparison to the value in the article seems quite reasonable. This value can then be used to calculate the angular frequency of both approach one and two.

6. Discussion 7. References

Appendix