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    Del

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    Touseef Hayat
    This document defines the curl and divergence of vector fields. It introduces the del operator ∇ and defines curl as the cross product of ∇ and a vector field F. Curl measures how much and in which direction a vector field rotates at each point. Divergence is defined as the sum of the partial derivatives of the vector field components. Divergence measures the flow rate out of each point. The document proves two theorems: 1) the curl of a gradient vector field is always zero, and 2) the divergence of a curl is always zero.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Del

    Uploaded by

    Touseef Hayat
    80 views2 pages
    This document defines the curl and divergence of vector fields. It introduces the del operator ∇ and defines curl as the cross product of ∇ and a vector field F. Curl measures how much and in which direction a vector field rotates at each point. Divergence is defined as the sum of the partial derivatives of the vector field components. Divergence measures the flow rate out of each point. The document proves two theorems: 1) the curl of a gradient vector field is always zero, and 2) the divergence of a curl is always zero.

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    This document defines the curl and divergence of vector fields. It introduces the del operator ∇ and defines curl as the cross product of ∇ and a vector field F. Curl measures how much and in which direction a vector field rotates at each point. Divergence is defined as the sum of the partial derivatives of the vector field components. Divergence measures the flow rate out of each point. The document proves two theorems: 1) the curl of a gradient vector field is always zero, and 2) the divergence of a curl is always zero.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    80 views2 pages

    Del

    Uploaded by

    Touseef Hayat
    This document defines the curl and divergence of vector fields. It introduces the del operator ∇ and defines curl as the cross product of ∇ and a vector field F. Curl measures how much and in which direction a vector field rotates at each point. Divergence is defined as the sum of the partial derivatives of the vector field components. Divergence measures the flow rate out of each point. The document proves two theorems: 1) the curl of a gradient vector field is always zero, and 2) the divergence of a curl is always zero.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    Definition 2.

    We define the curl of a vector field


    in space, F : R3 R3 , as
    curl F =
    
     F

    , ,
    (F1 , F2 , F3 )
    =
    Gradient, divergence, and curl
    x y z


    Math 131 Multivariate Calculus
    i

    j
    k

    D Joyce, Spring 2014
    = x y z
    F1 F2 F3
    
    
    F3 F2 F1 F3 F2 F1
    The del operator . First, well start by ab
    ,

    =
    stracting the gradient to an operator. By the
    y
    z z
    x x
    y
    way, the gradient of f isnt always denoted f ;
    Well look at a couple of examples of curl in class,
    sometimes its denoted grad f .
    As you know the gradient of a scalar field f : too. Its harder to get a good intuition for curl, but
    n
    it does say something about how much and which
    R R is
    way a vector field swirls, or rotates. A vector field
    
    
    whose curl is constantly 0 is called irrotational.
    f
    f f
    ,
    ,...,
    .
    f =
    You can take curls of plane vector fields F : R2
    x1 x2
    xn
    R2 , too. Just assume that the first two coordinate
    We can abstract this by leaving out the f to get an functions F1 and F2 dont depend on z and the
    third coordinate function F3 is 0. Then the first
    operator
    two coordinates of curl F are 0 leaving only the
    
    
    third coordinate

    ,
    ,...,
    =
    x1 x2
    xn
    F2 F1

    x
    y
    which, when applied to f yields f . This is
    called the del operator.
    as the curl of a plane vector field.
    We can treat this del operator like a vector itself.
    We can combine it with other vector operations like A couple of theorems about curl, gradient,
    dot product and cross product, and that leads to and divergence. The gradient, curl, and diverthe concepts of divergence and curl, respectively.
    gence have certain special composition properties,
    specifically, the curl of a gradient is 0, and the diDefinition 1. We define the divergence of a vector vergence of a curl is 0.
    field F : Rn Rn as
    The first says that the curl of a gradient field
    is 0. If f : R3 R is a scalar field, then its
    F1 F2
    Fn
    gradient, f , is a vector field, in fact, what we
    div F = F =
    +
    + +
    .
    x1
    x2
    xn
    called a gradient field, so it has a curl. The first
    theorem says this curl is 0. In other words, gradient
    Well look at a couple of examples in class. As we fields are irrotational.
    do so, well develop the idea that div F(x) somehow
    measures the rate of flow out of the point x, at least Theorem 3. If a scalar field f : R3 R has
    when F measures the velocity of a fluid. When a continuous second partial derivatives, then
    vector field F has 0 divergence, i.e., div F is concurl (grad f ) = (f ) = 0
    stantly 0, we say F is incompressible or solenoidal.
    1

    Proof. Since
    
    
    F3 F2 F1 F3 F2 F1
    F=

    y
    z z
    x x
    y
    and

    
    f f f
    f =
    ,
    ,
    ,
    x y z
    therefore (f ) equals
    
    
    f
    f f
    f f
    f

    .
    y z
    z y z x x z x y y x
    Since f has continuous second partials, the order
    that the partials are taken doesnt matter, so the
    last expression simplifies to (0, 0, 0).
    q.e.d.
    Theorem 4. If a vector field F : R3 R3 has continuous second partial derivatives of its coordinate
    functions, then
    div (curl F) = ( F) = 0.
    Proof. First, note that ( F) equals
    F3
    (
    x y

    F2
    )
    z

    F1
    (
    y z

    F3
    )
    x

    F2
    (
    z x

    F1
    ).
    y

    Since order the partials are taken doesnt matter,


    the expression simplifies to 0.
    q.e.d.
    Some of the other properties of div and curl are
    mentioned in the exercises for the section. First of
    all, theyre both linear. If k is a scalar, and F and
    G are vector fields, then
    div (kF)
    div (F G)
    curl (kF)
    curl (F G)

    =
    =
    =
    =

    k div F
    div F div G
    k curl F
    curl F curl G

    Some version of the product rule also works for


    them. Here f is a scalar field, and F and G are
    vector fields.
    div (f G) = f div G + (grad f ) G
    curl (f G) = f curl G + (grad f ) G
    div (F G) = G curl F F curl G
    Math 131 Home Page at
    http://math.clarku.edu/~djoyce/ma131/
    2

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