A Hard Kind Of Ring

A sphere of radius 2 m 2\text { m} translates around a fixed point at a distance of 10 m 10\text{ m} from the center of the sphere on the x y xy plane, generating a solid toroid. If the toroid has constant density of charge 125 C m 3 125 \dfrac{C}{\text{m}^3} , the value of the electric field on the point P ( 0 , 0 , 5 ) P(0,0,5) (where units are in meters) can be written as a π b ϵ 0 \dfrac{a\pi}{b\epsilon_{0}} where a a and b b are coprime positive integers, find the value of a + b a+b .


The answer is 21.

This section requires Javascript.
You are seeing this because something didn't load right. We suggest you, (a) try refreshing the page, (b) enabling javascript if it is disabled on your browser and, finally, (c) loading the non-javascript version of this page . We're sorry about the hassle.

1 solution

At first we'll take an infinitesimal part of the toroid, which is a disc with radious r r , which center is at a distance R R from the origin and a distance R 2 + L 2 \sqrt{R^2+L^2} from the point P P . By Gauss' Law we have that: E d E d s = Q e n l o s e d ϵ 0 \displaystyle \oint E_{dE} ds=\frac{Q_{enlosed}}{\epsilon_{0}} E d E 2 π R 2 + L 2 = ρ π r 2 ϵ 0 E_{dE}\cdot 2\pi \sqrt{R^2+L^2}=\frac{\rho\pi r^2}{\epsilon_{0}} E d E = ρ r 2 2 ϵ 0 R 2 + L 2 ( R cos θ , R sin θ , L ) R 2 + L 2 \Rightarrow \vec{E}_{dE}=\frac{\rho r^2}{2\epsilon_{0} \sqrt{R^2+L^2}}\cdot \frac{(-R \cos \theta , -R \sin \theta , L)}{\sqrt{R^2+L^2}} E d E = ρ r 2 ( R cos θ , R sin θ , L ) 2 ϵ 0 ( R 2 + L 2 ) \vec{E}_{dE}=\frac{\rho r^2 (-R\cos\theta,-R\sin\theta,L)}{2\epsilon_{0}(R^2+L^2)} Note that this can be done only because L R L\leq R . As we have an infinitesimal part of the total electric field at P P , we have: E = 0 2 π E d E d θ \vec{E}=\displaystyle \int_{0}^{2\pi}\vec{E}_{dE}d\theta E = 0 2 π ρ r 2 ( R cos θ , R sin θ , L ) d θ 2 ϵ 0 ( R 2 + L 2 ) \vec{E}=\displaystyle \int_{0}^{2\pi}\frac{\rho r^2 (-R\cos\theta,-R\sin\theta,L)d\theta}{2\epsilon_{0}(R^2+L^2)} By the geometry of the electric field we know that the components in x x and y y will be cancelled at summing up them: E = 0 2 π ρ r 2 L d θ 2 ϵ 0 ( R 2 + L 2 ) \vec{E}=\displaystyle \int_{0}^{2\pi}\frac{\rho r^2 L d\theta}{2\epsilon_{0}(R^2+L^2)} E = ρ r 2 L π ϵ 0 ( R 2 + L 2 ) \vec{E}=\frac{\rho r^2 L \pi}{\epsilon_{0}(R^2+L^2)} As R = 10 [ m ] R=10[m] , r = 2 [ m ] r=2[m] , ρ = 125 [ C m 3 ] \rho=125[\frac{C}{m^3}] and L = 5 L=5 : E = 20 π ϵ 0 \vec{E}=\frac{20\pi}{\epsilon_{0}}

Dear author, let me, please, express some doubts concerning just the answer of your wonderful problem. Being general enough your answer for the case of uniformly charged toroid could be used for a ring if you use the inequality r<< R and the expression for the whole charge Q . (Besides, your final expression for vector E should include L in the nominator). Then you wouldn't get well known correct result.

Сергей Кротов - 5 years, 2 months ago

Log in to reply

I repaired a mistake that I had, did you were refering to that?

Hjalmar Orellana Soto - 5 years, 2 months ago

Log in to reply

The main concern was that your answer would't give a correct answer in the case of uniformly charged ring of radius R on its vertical axis distance L apart from its center. The denominator of the ring result would be not R but sqrt (R^2 + L^2). Your repair was a minor one.

Сергей Кротов - 5 years, 2 months ago

Log in to reply

@Сергей Кротов U r right...I simply integrated d E s i n θ dEsin \theta and finally found a factor sqrt\{r^2+z^2} in the denominator..which was not actually of the reqd. form..then i checked my calculations again and finding no error i tapped discuss solution..anyway thanks for finding it out..

Istiak Reza - 4 years, 9 months ago

Now i got it, that inequallity you mentioned would hold if the point i calculated the electric field were in L > R L>R , as the problem indicates, is L R L\leq R , then you cannot do approximations far from the ring.

Hjalmar Orellana Soto - 1 year, 4 months ago

Whoa. This is legendary.

Kunal Verma - 5 years, 1 month ago

0 pending reports

×

Problem Loading...

Note Loading...

Set Loading...