Saturday, December 28, 2019

electrostatics - How would charge be distributed in charged conductors if the Coulomb law was not 1/r2?


Would the excess charge on a conductor move to surface until the electric field inside become zero if the Coulomb law was for example 1r3? If yes, would the distribution σ(x,y) be different from when it is 1r2?



Answer



Suggestion to the question (v3): Generalize the question to a 1/rs potential law in n spatial dimensions! Then according to Henry Cohn's mathoverflow answer here, the charges rush to the boundary iff sn2. So in OP's example (s=2,n=3), the charges don't rush to the boundary, in contrast to the real world (s=1,n=3).


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