2Electrostatics
IB Electromagnetism
2 Electrostatics
Electrostatics is the study of stationary charges in the absence of magnetic
fields. We take
ρ
=
ρ
(
x
),
J
= 0 and
B
= 0. We then look for time-independent
solutions. In this case, the only relevant equations are
∇ · E =
ρ
ε
0
∇ × E = 0,
and the other two equations just give 0 = 0.
In this chapter, our goal is to find
E
for any
ρ
. Of course, we first start with
simple, symmetric cases, and then tackle the more general cases later.