Why Does l Equal 1 in the Uniformly Magnetized Sphere Problem?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Old Guy
  • Start date Start date
  • Tags Tags
    Jackson
Join the discussion
Registration is free. Ask a follow-up in this thread, or start your own.
2 replies · 2K views
Old Guy
Messages
101
Reaction score
1

Homework Statement


Jackson Section 5.10, the uniformly magnetized sphere, I'm trying to fill in the steps from his first equation to Equation 5.104. I get the same potential except I am lacking the cos[tex]\theta[/tex] term. My work shown below.

Homework Equations





The Attempt at a Solution


[tex]$\begin{array}{l}<br /> \Phi _M = \frac{{M_0 a^2 }}{{4\pi }}\int {\frac{{\cos \theta '}}{{\left| {\user1{x - x'}} \right|}}d\Omega '} \\ <br /> \Phi _M = \frac{{M_0 a^2 }}{2}\int {\frac{1}{{\left| {\user1{x - x'}} \right|}}\cos \theta 'd\left( {\cos \theta '} \right)} \\ <br /> \Phi _M = \frac{{M_0 a^2 }}{2}\int {\left[ {\sum\limits_{l = 0}^\infty {\frac{{r_ < ^l }}{{r_ > ^{l + 1} }}P_l \left( {\cos \theta } \right)} } \right]P_1 \left( {\cos \theta '} \right)d\left( {\cos \theta '} \right)} \\ <br /> \Phi _M = \frac{{M_0 a^2 }}{2}\int {\frac{{r_ < ^{} }}{{r_ > ^2 }}P_1 \left( {\cos \theta } \right)P_1 \left( {\cos \theta '} \right)d\left( {\cos \theta '} \right)} \\ <br /> \Phi _M = \frac{{M_0 a^2 }}{2}\frac{{r_ < ^{} }}{{r_ > ^2 }}\int {P_1 \left( {\cos \theta } \right)P_1 \left( {\cos \theta '} \right)d\left( {\cos \theta '} \right)} \\ <br /> \Phi _M = \frac{{M_0 a^2 }}{2}\frac{{r_ < ^{} }}{{r_ > ^2 }}\left( {\frac{2}{{2 + 1}}} \right) \\ <br /> \Phi _M = \frac{{M_0 a^2 }}{3}\frac{{r_ < ^{} }}{{r_ > ^2 }} \\ <br /> \end{array}$[/tex]
 
Physics news on Phys.org
I see two things wrong with your solution:

(1) You seem to be claiming that

[tex]\frac{1}{|\textbf{x}-\textbf{x}'|}=\sum\limits_{l = 0}^\infty {\frac{{r_ < ^l }}{{r_ > ^{l + 1} }}P_l \left( {\cos \theta } \right)}[/tex]

but this is only true if [itex]\theta[/itex]is defined to be the angle between [itex]\textbf{x}[/itex] and [itex]\textbf{x}'[/itex], not the polar angle of [itex]\textbf{x}[/itex]

(2) You also seem to claim that [itex]P_l(\cos\theta)[/itex] is orthogonal (under the weight function [itex]\sin\theta'[/itex] ) to [itex]P_{l'}(\cos\theta')[/itex], but this is only true if [itex]\theta=\theta'[/itex]
 
Thanks; I went through again but with the full spherical harmonics, and paid careful attention to the primed and unprimed values, and got it, but it raises a more general question I would appreciate some help on. I know that azimuthal symmetry allows me to automatically set m=0, and I understand why. I can also demonstrate that l must be 1 for this problem, but is there something (physically or mathmatically) that would allow me to know without further work that l can only =1?