Electric fiel of wire carrying current

AI Thread Summary
Current-carrying wires do have an electric field, which is often overlooked in static analyses. This electric field is essential for the flow of current within the wire. In the case of alternating current, the current is influenced by electromagnetic waves that propagate between the wire and its ground. While a perfect conductor would confine currents to its surface, realistic conductors can also exhibit this behavior. Understanding these concepts is crucial for analyzing the behavior of electric fields around conductors.
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Is current carrying wire have any electric field?
 
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Yes, there is usually an implicitly applied electric field in the wire itself that gives rise to the current. Usually this electric field is ignored for the purposes of a simple static problem. However, if we have an alternating current, then this current is excited by an electromagnetic wave that propagates between the wire and the return/ground. This electromagnetic wave permeates the space around the wire. By convention, we do not regard the fields to penetrate the wire. A perfect conductor restricts all currents to the surface of the wire and prevents any fields from being present inside the wire. A realistic conductor can still be reasonably estimated to have this property as well.
 
See this:

author = "Assis, A. K. T. and Rodrigues, W. A. and Mania, A. J.",
title = "The electric field outside a stationary resistive wire carrying a constant current",
journal = "Foundations of Physics",
year = 1999,
volume = 29,
number = 5,
pages = "729-753",

(I am not an author)
 

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