Wednesday, April 8, 2015

newtonian mechanics - Why torque and force between two electric dipoles are not equal and opposite, is it violation of newton's 3rd law?


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so, here are two dipoles distance r apart i have calculated following:


(i)Fp1 (force on p1 due to p2)=0


(ii)Fp2(force on p2 due to p1=3p1p24πϵ0r40


Why two forces are unequal? Is it a violation of newton's 3rd law?


I also found torque on one due to another it is also coming unequal. I want to know, why it is the case for above dipoles configuration?


EDIT:


part (i)


The electric field at point p1 due to p2 will be



E=p22πϵ0r3ˆr


so, force on p1 will be Fp1=(p1)Ep1dEr dθ=0


ˆr is unit vector along left to right


and


ˆθ is unit vector from up to down


for (ii)part


electric field at point p2 due to p1 will be


E=p14πϵ0r3ˆθ


so, force on p2 will be


Fp2=(p2)Ep2dEdr=3p1p24πϵ0r4ˆθ



What is the physical explanation of phenomena?



Answer



The comments by others have provided the answers to both of the key issues in the question. Aaron pointed out the conceptual error regarding the torques: they do not necessarily cancel, in general. JEB, with an additional comment from Aaron, pointed out the mathematical error regarding the way you are calculating the derivative of the electric field. My answer here has a broader aim.


Since you mentioned Newton's third law, and asked for some physical explanation, I'm providing an alternative derivation which may enable you to check your own work. It is also, in my opinion, practically useful, closer to the underlying physical principles, and less error-prone.


Here's the essential physics. Assume that the forces F1, F2, and torques T1, T2, are derived from a potential energy function V of the positions and orientations of the two objects. If V is invariant to translations of the origin of coordinates, then F1+F2=0.

If V is invariant to rotations about the origin of coordinates, then T1+T2+r1×F1+r2×F2=T1+T2+(r1r2)×F1=0.
Both of these symmetries, of course, are related to conservation laws, for linear and angular momentum respectively, through Noether's theorem applied to the Lagrangian. Given the above assumption, the expressions for forces and torques must satisfy these equations, otherwise they are wrong; Newton's third law doesn't come into question. I won't give a formal proof of the above equations, but the derivation below contains the essentials.


For linear objects, whose orientations are specified by unit vectors ˆe1 and ˆe2, V can very often be expressed as a function of four quantities, all of which are translationally and rotationally invariant: r=|r1r2|,c=ˆe1ˆe2,C1=ˆe1(r1r2),C2=ˆe2(r1r2).

For the case of dipoles p1ˆe1, p2ˆe2: V=Ar3[c3C1C2r2]whereA=p1p24πϵ0
Deriving the forces and torques is quite straightforward: it is only necessary to differentiate V with respect to these four quantities, and use the chain rule. We only require the gradients (with respect to position and orientation) of these four functions. Here they are: φr1φr2φe1φe2φr(r1r2)/r(r1r2)/r00c00ˆe2ˆe1C1ˆe1ˆe1r1r20C2ˆe2ˆe20r1r2
The forces and torques may then be expressed F1=r1V,F2=r2V,T1=ˆe1×e1V,T2=ˆe2×e2V
The last two equations follow from considering the derivative V/ψ resulting from rotating the object by an angle ψ about an arbitrary unit axis vector ˆn, which by definition gives the ˆn component of the torque. In considering ei, there is no need to worry about the constraint that ˆei is a unit vector, because the cross-product ˆei× eliminates any unphysical component of the gradient along ˆei.


For the dipole-dipole case we get, in very few lines, F1=F2=3Ar5[(c5C1C2r2)(r1r2)+C2ˆe1+C1ˆe2]T1=Ar3ˆe1×[ˆe23C2r2(r1r2)]T2=Ar3ˆe2×[ˆe13C1r2(r1r2)]

These satisfy the equations at the top of this answer, and indeed this is guaranteed from the way they were derived.


For your particular geometry, setting r1=0, r2=rˆx, ˆe1=ˆy, ˆe2=ˆx, c=0, C1=0, C2=r, F1=3Ar4ˆy,F2=3Ar4ˆy,T1=2Ar3ˆz,T2=Ar3ˆz

So indeed, the torques are not equal and opposite, but they do satisfy rotational invariance when combined with (r1r2)×F1. The force F1 is not zero. The formula for F2 agrees with your result (ˆy points upward, your ˆθ points downward).


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