A textbook question requires me to calculate the force of attraction between plates of a parallel-plate capacitor. The answer provided is 12QE.
I am not entirely sure how they arrived at it. The charge on each plate will be Q=CV so from Coulomb's law, won't the force be defined as
F=14πϵ0(CVd)2=14πϵ0(Qd)2 ?
Answer
The energy of the capacitor is U=ϵ02SdE2 where S is the area of a plate. If we increase of Δd the distance of, say, the right plate from the left one, keeping fixed the charge Q on each plate, E does not change and we find a variation of energy ΔU=ϵ02SE2Δd=ϵ02SEEΔd=12QEΔd. This variation of energy, up to a sign, is due to the electric work FΔd, in turn, it is due to the force F the left plate applies on the charges of the right plate. Therefore F=12QE.
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