Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-shared-by-prelims-and-parts-a-and-b-of-the-physics-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2012/s7/1/4/solution

It can describe the motion per unit mass of a charged particle in the azimuthal magnetic field of a long straight current-carrying wire. Choose magnetic vector potential
Then and is the given Lagrangian. In terms of a straight-wire current , , so with signs fixed by charge and current direction.
A static magnetic force does no work, consistent with the conserved kinetic energy. Its radial component is and its axial component is , reproducing the radial and axial couplings above. The reference length in the logarithm is a gauge convention, not a new physical wire radius in the ideal exterior-field model.

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