Paper 2, Section I, 4D4 \mathrm{D}

Electromagnetism
Part IB, 2021

State Gauss's Law in the context of electrostatics.

A simple coaxial cable consists of an inner conductor in the form of a perfectly conducting, solid cylinder of radius aa, surrounded by an outer conductor in the form of a perfectly conducting, cylindrical shell of inner radius b>ab>a and outer radius c>bc>b. The cylinders are coaxial and the gap between them is filled with a perfectly insulating material. The cable may be assumed to be straight and arbitrarily long.

In a steady state, the inner conductor carries an electric charge +Q+Q per unit length, and the outer conductor carries an electric charge Q-Q per unit length. The charges are distributed in a cylindrically symmetric way and no current flows through the cable.

Determine the electrostatic potential and the electric field as functions of the cylindrical radius rr, for 0<r<0<r<\infty. Calculate the capacitance CC of the cable per unit length and the electrostatic energy UU per unit length, and verify that these are related by

U=Q22CU=\frac{Q^{2}}{2 C}