Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-b-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2012/paper-1/section-a/a2/solution

Choose the plate polarity so that the gap electric field points along when . Away from the plate edges, the quasistatic electromagnetic approximation gives . A circular Ampere-Maxwell law contour of radius then gives
It is displacement current, rather than a conduction current across the air, that supplies the enclosed current term. The direction follows the right-hand rule for increasing positive electric flux; it reverses every half cycle. In the ideal extension that sets the gap electric field to zero outside the plate footprint, for . That extension is an edge approximation, not an exact exterior solution for finite plates. Neglect fringing field of a capacitor and retardation, requiring and .

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