Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-2-paper-of-the-university-of-oxford/2015/2/b/solution

Neglect fringing field near the edges of the parallel-plate capacitor. Put the plates at , with prescribed electric potentials . Translational symmetry parallel to a plane makes the electrostatic potential independent of the coordinates parallel to the plates. Thus Laplace's equation reduces to . Its general solution is , and the two boundary conditions determine both constants:
The electric field is uniform and points toward decreasing electric potential. No plate voltages are specified, so a numerical electric potential cannot be fixed; choosing one plate as the reference only fixes the arbitrary additive constant.

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