Curl product rule for a scalar field

ID: curl-product-rule-for-a-scalar-field

For a continuously differentiable scalar field and vector field , the curl satisfies
Indeed, with fixed Cartesian basis vectors , the Cartesian expression for the curl and the product rule give
The first sum is the cross product of the gradient of with ; the second is times the curl of . The formula is useful when applying the Stokes theorem to a weighted vector field.

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