Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-2-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2013-resit/6/ii/solution

For an initially uncharged capacitor and zero initial current, Kirchhoff's voltage law is , with . Let
Differentiating the circuit equation at gives , while the original equation fixes and . The underdamped response is
For critical damping, , its limit is . For overdamping, put and obtain . These forms cover every positive .
The source does not explicitly specify the capacitor's initial charge. If its initial voltage is , replace in the numerators by ; an open switch alone does not discharge a capacitor. The boxed expression uses the usual uncharged initial condition.
Figure 1.
Current after a voltage step in a series RLC circuit
. Underdamped, critically damped, and overdamped responses for an initially uncharged capacitor. Time and current use the natural LC scales. Details.

New to topics? Read the docs here!