Chapter 2.

Maxwell’s Equations

2.1 Electrodynamics Before Maxwell

2.2 How Maxwell Fixed Ampere's Law
2.3 Maxwell's Equations .
2.4 Magnetic Charge .
2.5 Maxwell's Equations in Matter.
2.6 Boundary Conditions
 2.1 Electrodynamics Before Maxwell
So far, in the electromagnetic theory But, there is a fatal inconsistency

(Divergence of curl =  It’s OK.

0) ( =0)

 It’s OK only
J for steady current.
0
(v)
 (Charge conservation law)
 J   t ( Continuity equation)
 J  0  For steady current
For nonsteady currents,
 Inconsistent!

0

 Ampere’s law cannot be right

for nonsteady currents!
Electrodynamics Before Maxwell (James Clerk Maxwell)
There's another way to see that Ampere's law is bound to fail for nonsteady current.

Consider the process of charging up a capacitor.

Amperian surface
Amperian surface (S1)
Ampere’s law reads, (S2)

We want to apply it to the Amperian loop or Amperian surface.

 How do we determine Ienc?

 the total current passing through the loop,

 or, more precisely, the current piercing
a surface (S1, or S2) that has the loop for its boundary.

 For the surface S1, Ienc = I

 For the surface S2, Ienc = 0 (No current passes through it)

The conflict arises only when charge is piling up somewhere (in this case, on the capacitor
plates).
 For nonsteady currents, "the current enclosed by a loop" is an ill-defined notion,
since it depends entirely on what surface you use.

 Maxwell fixed it by purely theoretical arguments! (1861)

 2.2 How Maxwell Fixed Ampere's Law
for nonsteady currents:
The inconsistent problem arose on Ampere’s law when:   ( B)    J

James Clerk Maxwell, "A dynamical theory of the electromagnetic field”

(1865).

Applying the continuity equation and Gauss's law,

E 
  J  0 0
t 

E 
J   J  0 
t
  ( B) µo  E
 J   t   0  The inconsistency in Ampere’s law is now cured.

Ampere’s law can generally be expressed as

 B  0 E
 B  0 J  0 0 t
J
 How Maxwell Fixed Ampere's Law

B  A changing magnetic field induces an electric field.

Faraday’s law:  E   t

Ampere’s law:  B  0J  A steady current induces a magnetic

field.

Maxwell: E 
J   J  0 
t

J d   0 E  Displacement current
t

E  A changing electric field induces a magnetic

 B  0 J  0 0 t field.
 How Maxwell Fixed Ampere's Law
Let's see now how the displacement current resolves the paradox of the charging capacitor.

Amperian surface
The electric field between the capacitor plates Amperian surface (S1)
is (S2)

E
 B  0 J  0 0 t

 For the flat surface S1, E = 0 and Ienc = I.

 For the balloon-shape surface S2, Ienc = 0, but

 The same answer for either surface!

 How Maxwell Fixed Ampere's Law

Example: A fat wire, radius a, carries a constant current I, uniformly distributed

over its cross section. A narrow gap in the wire, of width w « a, forms a parallel-
plate capacitor. as shown below. Find the magnetic field in the gap, at a distance s
< a from the axis.

.
 2.3 Maxwell's Equations

Together with the force law,

 they summarize the entire theoretical content of classical electrodynamics.

(Note again, the continuity equation, can be derived from Maxwell’s equations.)
 Maxwell's Equations

 Electric fields can be produced

either by charges () or by changing magnetic fields.

 Magnetic fields can be produced

either by current (J) or by changing electric fields.

It may logically be preferable to write with the sources ( and J) on the right.

 All electromagnetic fields (E and B) are

ultimately attributable to charges and currents.

 Maxwell's equations tell you how (static or dynamic) charges produce fields.
 The force law tells you how fields affect charges.
 2.4 Magnetic Charge
There is a pleasing symmetry about Maxwell's equations; it is particularly striking
in free space, where ρ and J vanish:

 If you replace E by B and B by , the first pair of equations turns into

the second, and vice versa.
 This symmetry between E and B is spoiled, though, by the charge term in
Gauss's law and the current term in Ampere's law, what if we had

 The ρm would represent the density of magnetic "charge," and ρe the density
of electric charge; Jm would be the current of magnetic charge, and Je the
current of electric charge. Both charges would be conserved
The former follows by application of the divergence to (iii), the latter by taking
the divergence of (iv).
 As far as we know, ρm is zero everywhere, and so is Jm; B is not on equal
footing with E:stationary sources for E (electric charges) but none for B. (This
is reflected in the fact that magnetic multipole expansions have no monopole
term, and magnetic dipoles consist of current loops, not separated north and
south "poles.")
 In the quantum theory of electrodynamics, by the way, it's a more than merely
aesthetic shame that magnetic charge does not seem to exist.
Example: Assuming that "Coulomb's law" for magnetic charges (qm) reads

work out the force law for a monopole qm moving with velocity v through
electric and magnetic fields E and B
 2.5 Maxwell's Equations in Matter
 For inside polarized matter there will be accumulations of "bound" charge and
current over which you exert no direct control.
 It would be nice to reformulate Maxwell's equations in such a way as to make
explicit reference only to those sources we control directly: the "free" charges
and currents.
 From the static case, that an electric polarization P produces a bound charge
density

 A magnetic polarization (or "magnetization") M results in a bound current

 consider in the nonstatic case: Any change in the electric polarization involves
a flow of (bound) charge (call it Jp), which must be included in the total
current.
 For suppose we examine a tiny chunk of
polarized material as seen in figure
 The polarization introduces a charge density at one end and at the
other. If P now increases a bit, the charge on each end increases accordingly.
giving a net current

 The current density, therefore, is

 If P points to the right and is increasing, then each plus charge moves a bit to
the right and each minus charge to the left; the cumulative effect is the
polarization current Jp
 The polarization of current is consistent with the continuity equation:

 Therefore the total charge density can be separated into two parts:

 and the current density into three parts:

Gauss's law can now be written as

or

where D, as in the static case, is given by

Meanwhile, Ampere's law (with Maxwell's term) becomes

where, as before

Faraday's law and are not affected

by our separation of charge and current into
free and bound parts, since they do not involve
ρ or J. In terms of free charges and currents, then,
Maxwell's equations read
For linear media

Where and

Example: consider a parallel-plate capacitor immersed in sea water and

driven by a voltage at a frequency of sea water Hz
has permittivity permeability and resistivity
What is the ratio of conduction current to displacement current?
 2.6 Boundary Conditions
In general, the fields E, B, D, and H will be discontinuous at a boundary between
two different media, or at a surface that carries charge density σ or current density
K.

over any closed surface S.

for any surface S bounded by the closed loop P.

Applying (i) to a tiny, wafer-thin Gaussian pillbox extending just slightly into the
material on either side of the boundary
we obtain

The component of D that is perpendicular to the

interface is discontinuous in the amount

Identical reasoning, applied to equation (ii), yields

Turning to (iii), a very thin Amperian loop straddling
the surface gives

But in the limit as the width of the loop goes to zero,

the flux vanishes. Therefore

That is, the components of E parallel to the interface are continuous across the
boundary. By the same token, (iv) implies
where Ifenc is the free
current passing through the Amperian loop.
In fact. If is a unit vector perpendicular to the interface (pointing from 2 toward
I), so that is normal to the Amperian loop, then

Therefore,

So the parallel components of H are discontinuous by an amount proportional to

the free surface current density.
 The above equation are the general boundary conditions for electrodynamics.
In the case of linear media, they can be expressed in terms of E and B alone:

In particular, if there is no free charge or free current at the interface, then