Barkhausen pulse area 2026-10-18
Write the magnetic flux linkage of the stationary pickup coil as , in SI units of weber. If every turn links the same magnetic flux , then ; the turn count is dimensionless. With a fixed winding and terminal convention, Faraday's law of induction gives the induced electromotive force
This is the fundamental theorem of calculus applied to magnetic flux linkage. Its units are , not volts alone. Reversing the leads reverses the sign. In a high-input-electrical resistance voltage measurement the input approximately follows this electromotive force; coil loading and the frequency response of the electronics require separate calibration.
Separate direct drive linkage from material linkage: . Even an empty pickup coil has . In an ideal long, uniformly coupled specimen with negligible demagnetizing field correction and eddy current shielding, a useful material approximation is
Here is specimen cross-sectional area, not the larger coil aperture; is vacuum permeability and the axial magnetization sampled by the coil. The units check directly: . Finite geometry and nonuniform magnetization generally require a calibrated coupling in place of . The exact linkage identity survives that failure of the uniform approximation.
As an original illustrative calculation, stipulate , , and rounded . Then
A uniform change over would give a rectangular pulse of ; over it gives with the same area. Thus pulse height mixes change size with change speed. These numbers describe an ideal model, not observed pulses or material constants.
Biot-Savart law Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-18
For a steady current density , the magnetic field is
The Biot-Savart law adds magnetic field contributions from a specified electric current distribution. The vectors and locate source and observer; points toward the observer. Here is vacuum permeability. For a thin wire carrying electric current , the volume integral becomes a line integral:
Here follows positive conventional current; is the unit vector toward the observer. With fixed path orientation, reversing the electric current replaces by . The cross product and right-hand rule fix the direction. Reversing the source-to-observer displacement would give the wrong sign.[ref]
The setting is magnetostatics: time-independent current density and charge density, in vacuum or with the vacuum approximation for air. Electric charge conservation then gives . A finite segment is part of a complete electrical circuit; its endpoints cannot continuously accumulate electric charge in a steady state. The instantaneous integral above does not describe switching transients or electromagnetic radiation. In magnetic matter, specify the total current density, including magnetization current, rather than automatically replacing by an arbitrary magnetic permeability.[ref]
The superposition principle makes the Biot-Savart law useful even when the complete electrical circuit lacks the symmetry needed to evaluate Ampère's circuital law directly. Integrate a straight piece, a curved piece, and the return path separately, then add their magnetic fields as vectors. The beauty is that a local oriented current element produces both the circulating magnetic field of a finite straight wire and the reinforcing on-axis magnetic field of a circular current loop.
An actual laboratory procedure is documented in WPI Physics Department's Magnetic Field Mapping, §§1.2–1.2.3 and the single-coil checklist on p. 9. Preparation locates the active area of a Hall effect sensor using a small magnet. A field meter reads the component normal to that area. The wire apparatus is a wall-mounted square loop selectable between one and five conductors. The coil connects to a power supply and ammeter; its diameter and turn count are recorded. Align the sensor and scan distance. The control is a current-off background reading at each position, subtracted from the current-on reading. The inference compares corrected magnetic field with position and the predicted geometry dependence. Active-area displacement, sensor tilt, background variation, and finite coil width limit that comparison. These are instructions, not reported measurements.[ref]
A further proposed control is to reverse at fixed sensor position and orientation. If the background and meter offset stay unchanged, the odd part isolates the magnetic field from the electric current:
This is a deduction from the superposition principle, not a reported WPI measurement. The measured component, sensor position, and complete return path must still match the model.
Electromagnetic radiation Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-14
Electromagnetic radiation is a propagating disturbance of the electric field and magnetic field that carries energy and momentum away from its source. It can be a sustained electromagnetic wave or a finite wave packet: periodic oscillation is not required. In vacuum the disturbance travels at the speed of light. A receiver responds to fields arriving now from an earlier source event, as expressed by retarded time. This is how electrical activity at one place can deliver energy and information elsewhere without a connecting wire.
Stored electromagnetic energy alone does not establish outgoing electromagnetic radiation. A stationary electric charge in electrostatics, or a steady localized electric current in magnetostatics, can store electromagnetic energy with zero Poynting vector. Static combinations can have circulating energy flux without net outward power. Near a changing source, reactive energy can return later. The near and far field distinction separates these contributions from outgoing radiation zone fields.[ref]
A single traveling vacuum plane electromagnetic wave obeying the Maxwell equations has . Its Poynting vector gives the energy density and flux of a plane electromagnetic wave:
Here is wave intensity; and are vacuum permittivity and vacuum permeability. For a monochromatic wave with linear polarization and peak amplitude , squared cosine averages to . Pulses require the instantaneous Poynting vector; arbitrary incident-and-reflected superpositions need not obey this relation.[ref]
The electromagnetic momentum density is . Completely absorbing a unidirectional vacuum pulse of energy transfers momentum ; see radiation pressure on a perfectly absorbing surface. A calculated pulse transfers . Symmetric emission can lose energy without net recoil because opposite momenta cancel.[ref]
The direction of emission matters as much as its total power. For an oscillating electric dipole moment along , the angular distribution of electric dipole radiation is strongest across the axis and vanishes along it. Its origin is geometric: the electric dipole radiation field is the transverse projection of the second time derivative of the electric dipole moment, so its magnitude contains . Squaring this electric field to obtain wave intensity gives . The electric-dipole approximation for radiation requires a source much smaller than its wavelength and observation in the radiation zone. [ref]
Figure 1.
Normalized angular pattern of electric dipole radiation
. Calculated radiation zone model, not measured data. The polar curve's radial coordinate is normalized power per solid angle, , rather than physical distance or a field line. The angle is measured from the dipole axis. Rotating this meridional pattern about that axis gives the three-dimensional angular distribution. Details.
For example, the power per solid angle at is one quarter of its equatorial value, while the electric field amplitude is one half. To normalize the angular distribution to total power, use spherical coordinates with :
The integral follows by substituting , giving . This is a probability-like normalization over direction, with units of inverse steradian; it does not make the dipole an isotropic radiator. The same angular integral underlies the Larmor formula for nonrelativistic accelerated electric charge.
Detection requires the incident electromagnetic field to do something observable. An antenna develops an electrical response; a thermopile converts absorbed energy into a thermal and then electrical signal; a photodetector can respond through photon absorption. Hertz spark transmission and detection experiment makes this conversion visible as a tiny spark. Detector orientation, sensitivity, and surrounding reflections all matter: failure to see a signal does not prove that no electromagnetic radiation reached the receiver.
Far outside a localized steady source of size , at distance , its multipole expansion starts with the magnetic dipole moment if that moment is nonzero. In vacuum, using SI units,
where is the vacuum permeability, , and the magnetic field is the curl of the magnetic vector potential. The magnetic dipole field falls as , and the magnetic vector potential as . The localized steady-current moment identities remove the putative term in the magnetic vector potential. No magnetic monopole is needed. If different current loops cancel the total magnetic dipole moment, a higher term of the multipole expansion supplies the leading distant magnetic field. [ref].
The approximation is not valid at the center of a finite current loop. For a circular current loop of radius and electric current , the exact on-axis magnetic field of a circular current loop and the distant approximation are
Their ratio is : at , the approximate magnetic field exceeds the exact magnetic field by about relative to the exact value. Near the source, retain its geometry rather than replacing it with a point source specified only by its magnetic dipole moment.
Consider a stipulated dilute collection of independent two-level systems, each with longitudinal magnetic moment , , and energy . The prescribed vacuum/applied magnetic flux density is . Ignore interactions, orbital magnetic response, and the small sample-field correction. This is the magnetic version of the existing independent spin-one-half two-level system, with alignment probabilities rather than an interacting Curie–Weiss model.
For temperature , the canonical ensemble gives the one-moment partition function , with . Taking the expected value over its two Boltzmann weights gives
Here is the number density, the Boltzmann constant, and the hyperbolic tangent. For , its small-argument expansion of the hyperbolic tangent gives , a Curie's law response in the applied- convention. For large , approaches the saturation magnetization with sign set by the field, and its differential magnetic susceptibility falls towards zero.
Both plots use stipulated , , , and . The moment is approximately one Bohr magneton; the chosen vacuum permeability is a rounded model input. At , and . The linear approximation overestimates by less than for , corresponding to or . These parameters keep the modeled response weak; neglected magnetic feedback is of relative order , rather than an explanation of a material's ordered phase.
Figure 1.
Magnetization approaching saturation magnetization, with its small-field linear range
. Original independent-moment calculation at stipulated . The shaded range has less than error relative to the exact magnetization. The second panel enlarges this range. The prescribed field is ; curves are model predictions, not measured data. Details.
Figure 2.
Bias-field and temperature dependence of the independent-moment differential magnetic susceptibility
. Original calculation using the same stipulated moments and number density. The left panel compares field sweeps at , and . The right panel compares temperature sweeps at prescribed , and . The zero-field slope follows Curie's law; cooling at fixed nonzero field eventually suppresses the slope through saturation magnetization. Details.
At , cooling increases the zero-field slope as . At fixed , cooling instead gives : a saturated moment can hardly change further. The order of the zero-field and zero-temperature limits matters. This independent model has no finite-temperature collective phase transition; the diverging zero-field slope alone does not establish one.
Take a static uniform fluid of mass density , constant gas pressure, and background magnetic field with . Use SI units, vacuum permeability , zero electrical resistivity and zero viscosity. Write and , with both disturbances perpendicular to . Retain only linear order in their amplitudes. There is no background fluid flow, so the linear material derivative is .
The continuity equation has , hence ; choosing no initial mass density fluctuation gives . For this shear mode the gas pressure fluctuation is also zero. In the ideal magnetohydrodynamic momentum equation, the Lorentz force density can be written
Because , the perturbed magnetic pressure starts at quadratic order. The surviving transverse magnetic tension gives the first equation below. Expanding the ideal magnetohydrodynamic induction equation gives the second:
Differentiate the first in time and substitute the second. Both velocity and magnetic field disturbances obey the one-dimensional wave equation:
For a plane wave proportional to , this gives , or . The magnetic and velocity amplitudes satisfy : they have opposite signs for propagation along and equal signs for propagation along . The general uniform-background shear polarization of waves, perpendicular to both and , gives the same dispersion relation with . Its group velocity is , whereas its phase velocity normal to an oblique wavefront has magnitude .
In magnetostatics, an ideal infinitely long solenoid is a cylindrical sheet of circumferential surface current density . It has negligible winding advance, no magnetic core, and no imposed external magnetic field. Choose positive electric current to produce magnetic field along . In this ideal model the interior magnetic field is uniform and axial, , and the exterior magnetic field is zero; is the vacuum permeability. For a finite, closely wound air-core coil, the same result is an approximation well inside the coil, several radii from either end. Air is treated as having the magnetic permeability of vacuum. [ref].
For a short proof, the translational and rotational symmetries of the ideal cylindrical current sheet, together with the Biot-Savart law, give an axial magnetic field. Ampère's law on rectangles wholly outside makes that axial exterior value independent of radius; the condition of no imposed magnetic field makes it zero at infinity and hence everywhere outside. Rectangles wholly inside similarly show that the interior value is independent of radius. Now choose an Amperian loop with axial length , one long side inside and the other outside. The transverse sides are perpendicular to the magnetic field, so their contributions to the line integral vanish. The loop crosses turns of the winding, giving
Here is the integration-path length, not the whole coil length . An Amperian loop surrounding both sides of the winding encloses equal and opposite electric currents; zero net circulation alone would not prove zero magnetic field at every exterior point.
Figure 1. . Axial cross-section of an infinite ideal winding: paired dots and crosses show electric current out of and into the page. The indicated right-hand rule produces interior magnetic field along . The counterclockwise Amperian loop crosses only the upper row, with positive crossings; its interior side runs along , and its exterior return lies where the ideal magnetic field is zero. Details.
For the -turn, coil with electric current , the long-solenoid approximation gives
This illustrative calculation uses vacuum permeability , a rounded value, not an exact constant. Since the 2019 redefinition of SI, vacuum permeability is determined experimentally.[ref] Doubling doubles the ideal magnetic field; doubling at fixed does the same. Increasing while keeping fixed decreases and hence the ideal magnetic field.
Magnetic susceptibility Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-13
Magnetic susceptibility describes how readily a magnetic field changes a material's magnetization. The field variable and normalization matter: volume magnetic susceptibility in the International System of Units is dimensionless, whereas a derivative of total magnetic moment with respect to has units of . A slope measured against the applied magnetic field intensity also depends on the sample's demagnetizing field.
For an isotropic, reversible linear response through the origin, write
Here is magnetization, or magnetic moment per volume; is the internal magnetic field intensity; is the internal magnetic flux density; and is the vacuum permeability. Both and have units . The magnetic permeability is . [ref]
The independent-moment magnetic response below shows why one number cannot describe every field: magnetization approaches a saturation magnetization, while its differential magnetic susceptibility approaches zero. Anisotropy requires a magnetic susceptibility tensor; hysteresis requires specifying the preparation and sweep branch as well as the bias magnetic field, temperature, and timescale. The Gouy balance turns a small response into a measurable force without presuming that its readout is already the intrinsic volume magnetic susceptibility.
Magnetization Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-18
Magnetization is magnetic dipole moment per unit volume, described by a vector field . Average the microscopic magnetic dipole moments in a small region of volume around the point :
The averaging region should contain many microscopic constituents while being small compared with the distance over which the macroscopic magnetization varies. With number density of identical constituents, this becomes . Magnetic dipole moment has SI units , so magnetization has units : amperes per metre. The average is a vector sum, not a sum of magnitudes.[ref]
Alignment can change magnetization without changing the magnitude of any individual magnetic dipole moment. In a constructed counting example, eight equal magnetic dipole moments of magnitude occupy the same volume . Six along and two along give ; turning the two opposing magnetic dipole moments to doubles magnetization to . Both arrangements have the same sum of magnitudes, . Changing the individual magnetic dipole moments provides another possible response; their alignment and their magnitudes are distinct ingredients. Microscopic spin contributes magnetic dipole moment without being a literal rotating charged ball.
Figure 1. . Original eight-magnetic dipole moment counting model, with equal arrow lengths and equal averaging volumes. Reorienting two arrows doubles the net magnetic dipole moment without enlarging any individual magnetic dipole moment. The small count illustrates the sum; a macroscopic averaging region contains many more constituents. Details.
Distinguish magnetization , magnetic field , and magnetic field intensity . In SI,
Here is the vacuum permeability, and denotes the tesla. Magnetization describes matter's magnetic dipole moment density; magnetic field enters the Lorentz force; magnetic field intensity separates the free electric current contribution in the macroscopic equations. In particular, zero applied magnetic field does not generally imply inside a finite magnet: its demagnetizing field depends on shape.[ref]
For stationary electric polarization, magnetization produces bound current in the volume and on its bounding surface:
The curl gives a current density in ; is a surface current density in . The unit normal points outward from the magnetized material into a region with zero magnetization. Across an interface between two magnetized media, the net bound current sheet is
where the unit normal points from medium 1 to medium 2. Both faces contribute: medium 2 has the opposite outward normal vector. This fixes the cross product sign. If electric polarization changes with time, add its contribution to the bound current.[ref]
A short proof outline explains why both contributions are needed. Write , where is the indicator function of the material's volume. In the sense of distributions, its gradient is , with the surface delta distribution. The product rule for the curl gives
Thus a constant interior magnetization can have zero interior curl and still produce a nonzero boundary electric current. Equivalently, neighboring ideal microscopic current loops cancel along shared edges while uncompensated edges remain on the outside. This bound current representation predicts the same macroscopic magnetic field as the magnetization distribution; it does not require a wire or free charge transport around the magnet. Its usefulness is that the familiar Biot-Savart law can now calculate the magnetic field from a specified magnetization.
A time-dependent average magnetization need not vary smoothly under a smooth drive. The Barkhausen effect resolves collective jumps through their induced electromotive force; Barkhausen pulse area explains how that derivative readout relates to the underlying change.
In SI units, the magnetostatic Ampère law gives the current density supporting Planar London screening:
Here is the vacuum permeability. The sign follows from in the chosen coordinates. Thus requires electric current along . Its own magnetic field opposes the imposed magnetic field inside the material. The electric current is distributed over a finite layer; its depth integral is the effective surface current density
The units are for and for . Shrinking at fixed increases the surface current density, while this integrated surface current density stays fixed. The current sheet approximation is the large-length-scale limit of this layer, not a claim that an actual sample carries an infinitely thin electric current. It reproduces the magnetic-field jump across a surface current between the exterior and a field-free interior, with outward unit normal .
In weak magnetic field and the regime of paramagnetism, localized magnetic moments with total angular momentum and Landé g-factor have SI volume magnetic susceptibility
within the Curie–Weiss law. Here counts magnetic ions per volume, is the vacuum permeability, is the Bohr magneton, and is the Weiss temperature. The factor is the zero-field average of the squared angular projection over .
For one magnetic ion per formula unit, a molar volume contains magnetic ions, where is the Avogadro constant. Consequently , and the molar magnetic susceptibility is
Defining the dimensionless effective paramagnetic moment by , numerical substitution gives
The normalization is per mole of formula units, which here also means per mole of magnetic ions.
In a source-free vacuum, the Maxwell equations in SI are
where and are the vacuum permittivity and vacuum permeability. Take the curl of the last equation, substitute Faraday's law of induction, and use the curl of the curl identity:
The zero divergence therefore gives the wave equation
For a propagating plane wave, write . The wave equation gives , and Gauss's law for magnetism gives . Thus the oscillating magnetic field is a transverse wave: it is perpendicular to the propagation wavevector. A static background magnetic field, if present, is separate from this propagating component.
For a steady filamentary electric current , the Biot-Savart law is
Here is the observation position, the source position, points in the direction of positive electric current, and is the vacuum permeability. A circular loop has centre magnetic field : the cross product has magnitude and a constant axial direction, and .
Introduce the constant signed angular velocity about the positive axis. A ring's electric charge crosses any radial cut once per rotation, so its electric current is . Adding loop contributions yields the magnetic field of a rotating charged annulus:
The direction follows the right-hand rule for positive electric charge; reversing either or reverses the magnetic field. The source supplies no rotation rate, so the answer necessarily retains .
Take an electric current in the long solenoid. Away from its ends, Ampère's circuital law gives the approximately uniform magnetic field
Here is the vacuum permeability; an air core is understood. Each turn of the short surrounding coil encloses the magnetic flux . Thus its magnetic flux linkage is , and the mutual inductance is
The short coil lies in the nearly uniform central magnetic field; its own axial length therefore does not enter. With consistent winding orientations, Faraday's law of induction gives . Reversing a winding reverses this signed coupling, while the stated magnitude is unchanged.
In the long-solenoid approximation, the internal magnetic flux density is uniform, , and the external magnetic field is negligible. This follows from the magnetostatic Ampère law applied to a rectangular loop running inside and outside the solenoid. Its number of turns is and its cross-sectional area is . Each turn links magnetic flux . Therefore the flux linkage is
Using the definition of self-inductance, , gives
This neglects end leakage and winding thickness and uses vacuum permeability for the air core.
The field law. In the Biot-Savart law, is the contribution to the magnetic flux density at the observation point from a directed wire element carrying steady conventional electric current . The vector points from that element to the observation point, , and . The constant is the vacuum permeability; the cross product sets the direction by the right-hand rule. Integrating the elements gives the total field, in teslas.
The moment of the shown loop. The arrows in the original PDF run counterclockwise viewed from . Thus the magnetic dipole moment is
Its units are . Reversing the current reverses both this moment and the field.
For steady electric currents in vacuum, Ampère's circuital law is
Choose an oriented closed contour and a spanning surface; the positive enclosed electric current crosses that surface according to the right-hand rule for the contour. First use the source symmetry to establish the direction of and which positions have the same magnitude. Then choose the contour so its useful segments are parallel to with constant magnitude, and the remaining segments are perpendicular to or have vanishing field contribution. The line integral reduces to the unknown magnitude times a known length or sum of lengths.
For example, cylindrical symmetry around an infinite wire allows a circular contour, giving . A uniform current sheet instead calls for a rectangle straddling it. The law is always valid in this magnetostatic setting, but by itself does not determine the local magnetic field from an arbitrary enclosed current without these extra symmetry arguments. Here is the vacuum permeability.
For an infinite straight wire in vacuum, Ampère's circuital law around a circle of radius gives . Therefore
Here is the vacuum permeability and the azimuthal direction follows the right-hand rule around the electric current. The magnetic field is measured in .
Prescribe constant magnetization , with , inside a circular cylinder of radius and length , surrounded by zero magnetization. In cylindrical coordinates, the outward unit normal on the curved surface is , so
The endcaps have outward unit normals and . Their cross products with magnetization vanish, so on each endcap. The side bound current circulates counterclockwise when viewed from , by the right-hand rule. Zero endcap surface current density does not imply zero endcap magnetic field.
Figure 1.
A uniformly magnetized circular cylinder is equivalent to a circumferential bound current sheet
. Original prescribed-magnetization geometry. Blue arrows represent ; orange arrows represent side surface current density, not independent wires. The end view looks from . The endcap unit normals are parallel or antiparallel to , so neither endcap carries bound current. The drawing specifies source geometry, not a uniform finite-cylinder magnetic field. Details.
For an original example, let , , and . The volume and total magnetic dipole moment are
Check the result independently using the equivalent bound current: a side strip of axial length forms a current loop with and magnetic dipole moment . Its integral over gives the same . In particular, is the sum of the equivalent loop electric currents across a full axial cut; it is not a surface current density.
The side surface current density has exactly the geometry of a continuum solenoid with , where is solenoid turn density. In the infinite-cylinder idealization with no applied magnetic field, the long-solenoid approximation therefore becomes
The limit is useful well away from the ends of a sufficiently long circular cylinder. A finite circular cylinder instead has fringing magnetic field and a demagnetizing field. For this prescribed uniform magnetization, integrate the on-axis magnetic field of a circular current loop, or substitute in the on-axis magnetic field of a finite solenoid, to obtain the central magnetic field:
Our example has and , rather than unity. With the rounded vacuum permeability , this is approximately , compared with the infinite-cylinder value . These are model calculations for a prescribed magnetization, not measured values or a solution for the self-consistent magnetization of an arbitrary material.
Vacuum permittivity Created 2026-09-29 Updated 2026-10-14
Vacuum permittivity is the electromagnetic constant in Coulomb's law and the Vacuum Maxwell equations. In classical vacuum, and the electric displacement field is . A material's permittivity includes its electric polarization response; vacuum permittivity supplies the common reference, not a separate adjustable material property. Its SI unit is farad per metre.
For elementary calculations, vacuum permittivity is approximately . This is a deliberately rounded value, not an exact decimal or a statement of current measurement precision.[ref] It sets the scale in Coulomb's law, for two stationary point electric charges with separation length in vacuum, and therefore enters the reference capacitance of a parallel-plate capacitor.
Since the revised SI took effect on 20 May 2019, the numerical value of vacuum permittivity in SI units is determined experimentally, rather than fixed exactly by the unit definitions. The numerical values of the elementary charge , Planck constant and speed of light are fixed exactly. The fine-structure constant is measured, and
where is vacuum permeability. Consequently vacuum permittivity and vacuum permeability have experimental uncertainty, while their product is exact in SI units because is exact. This is a change in metrological status, not a new material dependence of vacuum permittivity.[ref]