Saturday, 25 March 2017

electromagnetism - Quantitative relation between two charges moving in parallel in two frames of reference


The relevant question is here. The accepted answer may have explained my question in a descriptive manner. However, I want to see how things are related quantitatively.


Imagine we have two charges q moving parallel to each other. The distance between them is d.





  • In the frame where the charges are stationary. We have: m0a0=q24πϵ0d




  • In the laboratory frame, the charges also experience a force caused by the magnetic field which is generated by the other charge: B=μ0qv2πd The total force is: F=q24πϵ0dμ0q2v22πd=m01v2/c2a




There is also the relation of a0 and a that relate these two equations of motion. However, it seems I cannot get the right result.


Any help in figuring out how to relate these two situations would be appreciated.



Answer




Actually it's not that difficult (but a neat problem), there's only one crucial step in the development that I will show you, but let's start from a bit earlier.


Let's first write out the two forces on interest here (in terms of magnitudes, as we know already they're on parallel trajectories):


The coulomb repulsion between the charges: FC=q24πϵ0r2 Now since we have moving charges, (hence a current), each charge will experience a Lorentz force in the magnetic field induced by the other charge, using Biot-Savart's law, we have for the magnetic field B : B=μ0IdL4πr2 Which should be interpreted as (by analogy to a electrical circuit) "the magnetic field felt at a distance r, induced by a wire length dL carrying current I".


Note μ0 is the permeability of vacuum, ϵ0 is the corresponding permittivity.


The Lorentz force: FL=qBv=μ0q2v24πr2 where the IdL term in B field is replaced using: I=q/dt and dL/dt=v, which gives finally IdL=qv.


The two forces together (with FC the repulsive force here): F=q24πϵ0r2μ0q2v24πr2 It is clear that the resulting effect of the two forces depends on the strength of the B field which in turn then depends on the velocity of the two charges, if they are slow, the repulsion dominates. So in order to be able to compare their relative strengths, we need a slight rearrangement for the F:


Ftot=q24πϵ0r2(1v2ϵ0μ0) where v2ϵ0μ0=FLFC But we know that ϵ0μ0=c2 the inverse squared of speed of light in vacuum, substituted in the total force expression: Ftot=FC(1v2c2)=FCγ2 Where γ is the relativistic factor (1v2/c2)1/2 or often called Lorentz factor, which relates the measurements performed in different inertial frames moving at v with respect to one another.


Last note: if the charges are not in vacuum, the relative permittivity ϵ and permeability μ are included in the expressions.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Understanding Stagnation point in pitot fluid

What is stagnation point in fluid mechanics. At the open end of the pitot tube the velocity of the fluid becomes zero.But that should result...