3 ELECTRIC FLUX DENSITY AND GAUSS’S LAW

It is very helpful to invent an electric flux that streams away symmetrically from a point charge and
to visualize this flux wherever an electric field is present. Michael Faraday experimented on static
electric fields and the effect of various insulating materials on these fields. He had a pair of concentric
metallic spheres constructed, the outer one consisting of two hemispheres that could be firmly
clamped together. He also prepared shells of insulating material (or dielectric material or simply
dielectric) that would occupy the entire volume between the concentric spheres. The experiment
can be summarized as follows:
1. With the equipment dismantled, the inner sphere was given a known positive charge.
2. The hemispheres were then clamped together around the charged sphere with about 2 cm of
dielectric material between them.
3. The outer sphere was discharged by connecting it momentarily to ground.
4. The outer sphere was separated carefully, using tools made of insulating material in order not to
disturb the induced charge on it, and the negative induced charge on each hemisphere was
measured.

Faraday found that the total charge on the outer sphere was equal in magnitude to the original charge
placed on the inner sphere and that this was true regardless of the dielectric material separating the
two spheres. He concluded that there was some sort of “displacement” from the inner sphere to the
outer which was independent of the medium, and we now refer to this flux as displacement,
displacement flux, or simply electric flux. Also that a larger positive charge on the inner sphere
induced a correspondingly larger negative charge on the outer sphere, leading to a direct
proportionality between the electric flux and the charge on the inner sphere. If electric flux is
denoted by ψ (psi) and the total charge on the inner sphere by Q, then
ψ = Q (the constant of proportionality is unity)
We can obtain more quantitative information by considering an inner sphere of radius a and an
outer sphere of radius b, with charges of Q and −Q, respectively (Figure 3.1). The paths of electric
flux ψ extending from the inner sphere to the outer sphere are indicated by the symmetrically
distributed streamlines drawn radially from one sphere to the other. At the surface of the inner
sphere, ψ coulombs of electric flux are produced by the charge Q distributed uniformly over a
surface having an area of 4πa2 m2. The density of the flux at this surface is ψ /4πa2 or Q/4πa2 C/m2,
and this new quantity is known as Electric flux density(D).

Figure 3.1: The electric flux in the region between a pair of charged concentric spheres. The
direction and magnitude of D are not functions of the dielectric between the spheres.
The direction of D at a point is the direction of the flux lines at that point, and the magnitude is
given by the number of flux lines crossing a surface normal to the lines divided by the surface area.
Referring again to Figure 3.1, the electric flux density is in the radial direction and has a value of:

and at a radial distance r , where a ≤ r ≤ b,

If we now let the inner sphere become smaller and smaller, while still retaining a charge of Q, it
becomes a point charge in the limit, but the electric flux density at a point r meters from the point
charge is still given by

since Q lines of flux are symmetrically directed outward from the point and pass through an
imaginary spherical surface of area 4πr 2. This result should be compared with the radial electric field
intensity of a point charge in free space (section 2.2), in which
𝑞1
𝐄= 𝑎
4𝜋𝜖𝑜 𝑟 2 𝑟

In free space, therefore,

(free space only)

This is not restricted solely to the field of a point charge. For a general volume charge distribution
in free space,

(free space only)

Therefore,

The generalizations of Faraday’s experiment lead to the following statement, which is known as
Gauss’s law:
The electric flux passing through any closed surface is equal to the total charge enclosed by
that surface
The contribution of Gauss was actually not in stating the law as we have, but in providing a
mathematical form for this statement, which we will now obtain. Imagine a distribution of charge,
shown as a cloud of point charges in Figure 3.2, surrounded by a closed surface of any shape. The
closed surface may be the surface of some real material, but more generally it is any closed surface
we wish to visualize. If the total charge is Q, then Q coulombs of electric flux will pass through the
enclosing surface. At every point on the surface, the electric-flux-density vector D will have some
value DS, where the subscript S merely reminds us that D must be evaluated at the surface, and DS
will in general vary in magnitude and direction from one point on the surface to another. We must
now consider the nature of an incremental element of the surface. An incremental element of area
ΔS is very nearly a portion of a plane surface, and the complete description of this surface element
requires not only a statement of its magnitude ΔS but also of its orientation in space. In other words,
the incremental surface element is a vector quantity. The only unique direction that may be
associated with ΔS is the direction of the normal to that plane which is tangent to the surface at the
point in question. There are, of course, two such normals, and the ambiguity is removed by
specifying the outward normal whenever the surface is closed and “outward” has a specific meaning.

Figure 3.2: The electric flux density DS at P arising from charge Q. The total flux passing through
ΔS is DS.ΔS.

At any point P, consider an incremental element of surface ΔS and let DS make an angle θ with ΔS,
as shown in Figure 3.2. The flux crossing ΔS is then the product of the normal component of DS and
ΔS,
Δψ = flux crossing ΔS = DSnorm ΔS = DS cosθΔS = DS ·ΔS
where we are able to apply the definition of the dot product. The total flux passing through the closed
surface is obtained by adding the differential contributions crossing each surface element ΔS,

qz
We then have the mathematical formulation of Gauss’s law,

The charge enclosed might be several point charges, in which case

Q = ∑Qn
or a line charge,

or a surface charge,

(not necessarily a closed surface)

or a volume charge distribution,
The last form is usually used, and we should agree now that it represents any or all of the other
forms. With this understanding, Gauss’s law may be written in terms of the charge distribution as

3.2 THE VECTOR OPERATOR ∇ AND THE DIVERGENCE THEOREM

The divergence is an operation on a vector yielding a scalar result, just as the dot product of two
vectors gives a scalar result; it seems possible that we can find something that may be dotted formally
with a vector such as D to yield the scalar

Obviously, this cannot be accomplished by using a dot product; the process must be a dot operation.
With this in mind, we define the del operator ∇ as a vector operator,

We agree on defining ∇ that it shall be treated in every way as an ordinary vector with the one
important exception that partial derivatives result instead of products of scalars. Consider ∇ ·D,

signifying
We first consider the dot products of the unit vectors, discarding the six zero terms, and obtains the
result that we recognize as the divergence of D:

The vector operator ∇ is used not only with divergence, but also with several other very important
operations that appear later. We close our discussion of divergence by presenting a theorem that
will be needed several times in later chapters, the divergence theorem. This theorem applies to any
vector field for which the appropriate partial derivatives exist, although it is easiest for us to develop
it for the electric flux density. We have actually obtained it already and now have little more to do
than point it out and name it, for starting from Gauss’s law, we have

The first and last expressions constitute the divergence theorem,

which may be stated as follows: The integral of the normal component of any vector field over a
closed surface is equal to the integral of the divergence of this vector field throughout the volume
enclosed by the closed surface.