Distribute a positive electric charge uniformly through a closed ball of radius in vacuum, with no external field. Its volume charge density is . For , the enclosed fraction is . Applying Gauss's law on a concentric Gaussian surface gives
The electric field grows linearly inside and decays as an inverse square outside. With , its values at are . The field vanishes at the centre by spherical symmetry and is continuous at the surface because this ideal volume distribution has no singular surface layer. Its interior behavior differs from a conductor in electrostatic equilibrium, where mobile charge redistributes.
Figure 1.
A uniform volume charge and a uniform thin-shell charge have the same exterior field but different interior fields
. Details.

Articles by others on the same topic (NaN)

There are currently no matching articles.