Missing a Factor of 2 in a Poynting Vector Verification

  • Context: Graduate 
  • Thread starter Thread starter the-brammo
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Poynting vector Vector
the-brammo
Messages
5
Reaction score
0
The question reads:

A fat wire, radius a, carries a constant current I, uniformly distributed over its cross section. A narrow gap in the wire, of width w << a, forms a parallel-plate capacitor.

I have drawn a red box at the bottom of the page where the Poynting theorem is supposedly verified - however it seems to be a factor of 2 out. I am happy that the derivation for uem is correct, it must be something to do with the very last line. Could someone please point me in the right direction, excuse the pun.

Poynting.png
 
Last edited:
on Phys.org
You should be careful about taking the divergence in cylindrical coordinates.
 
Is this a hint? I know there are some steps are missing, does a factor of two comes out when the divergence of s is taken in cylindrical coordinates?
 
the-brammo said:
Is this a hint? I know there are some steps are missing, does a factor of two comes out when the divergence of s is taken?

Yes, it was a hint. The divergence of a vector field with only a radial component is given by [tex]\nabla \cdot (A_s\hat{s})=\frac{1}{s}\frac{\partial}{\partial s}(sA_s).[/tex]

So in your example ## A_s =s## and the divergence becomes

[tex]\nabla \cdot (s \hat{s})=\frac{1}{s}\frac{\partial}{\partial s}(s^2)=2.[/tex]
 
Thanks so much, this answers my question perfectly.
 

Similar threads

  • · Replies 14 ·
Replies
14
Views
3K
Replies
26
Views
3K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
3K
  • · Replies 3 ·
Replies
3
Views
11K
  • · Replies 1 ·
Replies
1
Views
5K
  • · Replies 0 ·
Replies
0
Views
4K