Lecture 3

Electric field of charge distributions

August 16, 2016

Objectives

Evaluate the electric field at a point in space due to a system of

arbitrary charge distributions

Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

2 / 20

Total electric field

Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

3 / 20

Total electric field

Example
Two particles with charges +q and q are located at the corners of an
equilateral triangle of side length d. What is the electric field at point P?

Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

4 / 20

Total electric field

Get the vector sum of the fields.

* E = E + E = E cos 60 + E cos(60 )
x
1,x
2,x
1
2
E~ = E~1 + E~2
Ey = E1,y + E2,y = E1 sin 60 + E2 sin(60 )
Compute for the electric field magnitudes.
E1 = E2 = k
Lecture 3

q
d2
August 16, 2016

5 / 20

Total electric field

E~ = E~x + E~y
= 2 E1 cos
60 + 0
|{z} | {z }
 q  1 

=2 k 2
d
2
q
= k 2 .
d

Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

6 / 20

ConcepTest!

Charges of the same magnitude Q are on the vertices of a regular octagon

as shown. What is the total electric field at the center of the octagon?
kQ

a2
kQ
(B) 2
a
kQ
(C) 2 2
a
(A)

(D) zero

Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

7 / 20

Exercise!

What is the electric field at the center?

Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

8 / 20

Exercise!

Get the vector sum of the fields.

* E =E +E +E +E
x
1,x
2,x
3,x
4,x
E~ = E~1 + E~2 + E~3 + E~4
Ey = E1,y + E2,y + E3,y + E4,y
Compute first for the electric field magnitudes.
q
q
E1 = E2 = E3 = E4 = k  2 = 2k 2
a
2
2 a
Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

9 / 20

Exercise!

E~ = E~x + E~y
= 0 4 E1 sin
45
|{z} | {z }
!
 q  2
= 4 2k 2

a
2
q
= 4 2k 2 .
a

Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

10 / 20

Discrete vs. continuous

continuous

discrete

Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

11 / 20

Electric field of a charged rod

Example
A positive charge Q is uniformly distributed on a rod of length a. What is
the electric field along the rod, a distance b from the right end of the
segment?

Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

12 / 20

Electric field of a charged rod

Divide the rod into many, many segments. Each segment would be very,
very short. Lets call their length dx.
Since one segment is very, very short, it can treated as a point particle, with
a very, very small electric field
d E~ = k

dq

r2

where dq is that very, very small charge of that very, very small segment.
Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

13 / 20

Electric field of a charged rod

But what is the separation r ? For a segment at some location x, its separation from point P is (a x) + b.
d E~ = k

dq

[(a x) + b]2

Now we want to sum up the contributions of all the segments.

Z
dq
~
k

E=
[(a

x) + b]2
all charges
Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

13 / 20

Electric field of a charged rod

We want to convert dq to dx. We can do this by using the fact that the
linear charge density of the rod is a constant.
Q
Q
dq
=
dq = dx
dx
a
a
So we can write the previous integration to
Z

dq
E~ =
k

[(a

x) + b]2
all charges
Lecture 3

k
0

Q
a dx

[(a x) + b]2

August 16, 2016

13 / 20

Electric field of a charged rod

Performing the integration, we get

kQ
E~ =
a


1
1

.
b a+b

Sanity check: what happens when b is large?

kQ
a
kQ
E~ =
= 2
b
:

a b(
b
b)
a+
The electric field is similar to a point particle.
Lecture 3

August 16, 2016

13 / 20