Can Scalar Fields Be Decomposed Similar to Vector Fields?

bsaucer
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If a vector field can be decomposed into a curl field and a gradient field, is there a similar decomposition for scalar fields, say into a divergence field plus some other scalar field?
 
on Phys.org
Well, perhaps you are not stating your question in a very precise manner to help us understand what exactly you mean, but I believe scalar field decomposition is easy. Suppose we have scalar field ##\phi## and ##\vec{A}## is any vector field, then we can write the equation

$$\phi=\nabla\cdot \vec{A}+\rho$$ where ##\rho## is another scalar field. Since in this equation both ##\phi## and ##\nabla\cdot\vec{A}## are scalar their difference ##\rho=\phi-\nabla\cdot \vec{A}## is well defined and is a scalar too. So in this way a scalar field can be decomposed in infinitely many ways, each way for each random vector field A we choose.

On the other hand if we first chose the scalar field ##\rho## randomly and then we seek for a vector field ##\vec{A}## that satisfies the equation

$$\nabla\cdot\vec{A}=\phi-\rho$$ then this vector field A is not uniquely defined since knowing only the divergence of a vector field does not uniquely determine the field (we also must know its curl and know some other conditions as well to uniquely determine it).
 

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