Gauss's law

In physics, Gauss's law, also known as Gauss's flux theorem (https://courses.lumenlearning.com/bou

ndless-physics/chapter/electric-flux-and-gausss-law/), is a law relating the distribution of electric
charge to the resulting electric field. The surface under consideration may be a closed one enclosing a
volume such as a spherical surface.

The law was first[1] formulated by Joseph-Louis Lagrange in 1773,[2] followed by Carl Friedrich Gauss
in 1813,[3] both in the context of the attraction of ellipsoids. It is one of Maxwell's four equations, which
form the basis of classical electrodynamics.[note 1] Gauss's law can be used to derive Coulomb's law,[4]
and vice versa.

Contents
Qualitative description
Equation involving the E field
Integral form
Applying the integral form
Differential form
Equivalence of integral and differential forms
Equation involving the D field
Free, bound, and total charge
Integral form
Differential form
Equivalence of total and free charge statements
Equation for linear materials
Interpretations
In terms of fields of force
Relation to Coulomb's law
Deriving Gauss's law from Coulomb's law
Deriving Coulomb's law from Gauss's law
See also
Notes
Citations
References
External links

Qualitative description
In words, Gauss's law states that
The net electric flux through any hypothetical closed surface is equal to times the net electric charge
within that closed surface.[5]

Gauss's law has a close mathematical similarity with a number of laws in other areas of physics, such as
Gauss's law for magnetism and Gauss's law for gravity. In fact, any inverse-square law can be formulated
in a way similar to Gauss's law: for example, Gauss's law itself is essentially equivalent to the inverse-
square Coulomb's law, and Gauss's law for gravity is essentially equivalent to the inverse-square
Newton's law of gravity.

The law can be expressed mathematically using vector calculus in integral form and differential form;
both are equivalent since they are related by the divergence theorem, also called Gauss's theorem. Each
of these forms in turn can also be expressed two ways: In terms of a relation between the electric field E
and the total electric charge, or in terms of the electric displacement field D and the free electric
charge.[6]

Equation involving the E field

Gauss's law can be stated using either the electric field E or the electric displacement field D. This
section shows some of the forms with E; the form with D is below, as are other forms with E.

Integral form
Gauss's law may be expressed as:[6]

where ΦE is the electric flux through a closed surface S enclosing any volume V, Q is the total charge
enclosed within V, and ε0 is the electric constant. The electric flux ΦE is defined as a surface integral of
the electric field:

where E is the electric field, dA is a vector representing an infinitesimal element of area of the
surface,[note 2] and · represents the dot product of two vectors.

Since the flux is defined as an integral of the electric field, this expression of Gauss's law is called the
integral form.

An important fact about this fundamental equation often doesn't find a mention in expositions that are not
absolutely diligent. The above equation may fail to hold true in case the closed surface S contains a
singularity of the electric field, which is physicists' term for a point in space where either a point charge
exists and the field strength approaches infinity, or the field's magnitude or direction gets altered
discontinuously due to the existence of a surface charge. In 2011, a modification of the above equation,
called the Generalized Gauss's Theorem by its original creator, was published in the proceedings of the
2011 Annual Meeting of Electrostatics Society of America.[8] The Generalized Gauss's Theorem allows
the closed surface S to pass through singularities of the electric field. A corollary of the Generalized
Gauss's Theorem, known as the simplest form of the Generalized Gauss's Theorem, holds true if the
surface S is smooth. It states that

where Q is the net charge enclosed within V and Q' is the net charge contained by the closed surface S
itself.

Applying the integral form

If the electric field is known everywhere, Gauss's law makes it possible to find the distribution of electric
charge: The charge in any given region can be deduced by integrating the electric field to find the flux.

The reverse problem (when the electric charge distribution is known and the electric field must be
computed) is much more difficult. The total flux through a given surface gives little information about
the electric field, and can go in and out of the surface in arbitrarily complicated patterns.

An exception is if there is some symmetry in the problem, which mandates that the electric field passes
through the surface in a uniform way. Then, if the total flux is known, the field itself can be deduced at
every point. Common examples of symmetries which lend themselves to Gauss's law include: cylindrical
symmetry, planar symmetry, and spherical symmetry. See the article Gaussian surface for examples
where these symmetries are exploited to compute electric fields.

Differential form
By the divergence theorem, Gauss's law can alternatively be written in the differential form:

where ∇ · E is the divergence of the electric field, ε0 is the electric constant, and ρ is the total electric
charge density (charge per unit volume).

Equivalence of integral and differential forms

The integral and differential forms are mathematically equivalent, by the divergence theorem. Here is the
argument more specifically.

Outline of proof
The integral form of Gauss' law is:

for any closed surface S containing charge Q. By the divergence

theorem, this equation is equivalent to:
 for any volume V containing charge Q. By the relation between charge
and charge density, this equation is equivalent to:

for any volume V. In order for this equation to be simultaneously true

for every possible volume V, it is necessary (and sufficient) for the
integrands to be equal everywhere. Therefore, this equation is
equivalent to:

Thus the integral and differential forms are equivalent.

Equation involving the D field

Free, bound, and total charge

The electric charge that arises in the simplest textbook situations would be classified as "free charge"—
for example, the charge which is transferred in static electricity, or the charge on a capacitor plate. In
contrast, "bound charge" arises only in the context of dielectric (polarizable) materials. (All materials are
polarizable to some extent.) When such materials are placed in an external electric field, the electrons
remain bound to their respective atoms, but shift a microscopic distance in response to the field, so that
they're more on one side of the atom than the other. All these microscopic displacements add up to give a
macroscopic net charge distribution, and this constitutes the "bound charge".

Although microscopically all charge is fundamentally the same, there are often practical reasons for
wanting to treat bound charge differently from free charge. The result is that the more fundamental
Gauss's law, in terms of E (above), is sometimes put into the equivalent form below, which is in terms of
D and the free charge only.

Integral form
This formulation of Gauss's law states the total charge form:

where ΦD is the D-field flux through a surface S which encloses a volume V, and Qfree is the free
charge contained in V. The flux ΦD is defined analogously to the flux ΦE of the electric field E through
S:
Differential form
The differential form of Gauss's law, involving free charge only, states:

where ∇ · D is the divergence of the electric displacement field, and ρfree is the free electric charge
density.

Equivalence of total and free charge statements

Proof that the formulations of Gauss's law in terms of free charge
are equivalent to the formulations involving total charge.
In this proof, we will show that the equation

is equivalent to the equation

Note that we are only dealing with the differential forms, not the
integral forms, but that is sufficient since the differential and integral
forms are equivalent in each case, by the divergence theorem.

We introduce the polarization density P, which has the following

relation to E and D:

and the following relation to the bound charge:

Now, consider the three equations:

The key insight is that the sum of the first two equations is the third
equation. This completes the proof: The first equation is true by
definition, and therefore the second equation is true if and only if the
third equation is true. So the second and third equations are
equivalent, which is what we wanted to prove.

Equation for linear materials

In homogeneous, isotropic, nondispersive, linear materials, there is a simple relationship between E
and D:

where ε is the permittivity of the material. For the case of vacuum (aka free space), ε = ε0. Under these
circumstances, Gauss's law modifies to

for the integral form, and

for the differential form.

Interpretations

In terms of fields of force

Gauss's theorem can be interpreted in terms of the lines of force of the field as follows:

The flux through a closed surface is dependent upon both the magnitude and direction of the electric field
lines penetrating the surface. In general a positive flux is defined by these lines leaving the surface and
negative flux by lines entering this surface. This results in positive charges causing a positive flux and
negative charges creating a negative flux. These electric field lines will extend to infinite decreasing in
strength by a factor of one over the distance from the source of the charge squared. The larger the number
of field lines emanating from a charge the larger the magnitude of the charge is, and the closer together
the field lines are the greater the magnitude of the electric field. This has the natural result of the electric
field becoming weaker as one moves away from a charged particle, but the surface area also increases so
that the net electric field exiting this particle will stay the same. In other words the closed integral of the
electric field and the dot product of the derivative of the area will equal the net charge enclosed divided
by permittivity of free space.

Relation to Coulomb's law

Deriving Gauss's law from Coulomb's law

Strictly speaking, Gauss's law cannot be derived from Coulomb's law alone, since Coulomb's law gives
the electric field due to an individual point charge only. However, Gauss's law can be proven from
Coulomb's law if it is assumed, in addition, that the electric field obeys the superposition principle. The
superposition principle says that the resulting field is the vector sum of fields generated by each particle
(or the integral, if the charges are distributed smoothly in space).

Outline of proof
Coulomb's law states that the electric field due to a stationary point
charge is:
 where

er is the radial unit vector,

r is the radius, |r|,
ε0 is the electric constant,
q is the charge of the particle, which is assumed to be located at
the origin.

Using the expression from Coulomb's law, we get the total field at r by
using an integral to sum the field at r due to the infinitesimal charge at
each other point s in space, to give

where ρ is the charge density. If we take the divergence of both sides

of this equation with respect to r, and use the known theorem[9]

where δ(r) is the Dirac delta function, the result is

Using the "sifting property" of the Dirac delta function, we arrive at

which is the differential form of Gauss' law, as desired.

Note that since Coulomb's law only applies to stationary charges, there is no reason to expect Gauss's law
to hold for moving charges based on this derivation alone. In fact, Gauss's law does hold for moving
charges, and in this respect Gauss's law is more general than Coulomb's law.

Proof (without Dirac Delta)

Let be a bounded open set, and

be the electric field, with a

continuous function (density of charge).

it's true that .

Let's consider now a compact set having a piecewise smooth boundary s.t. . It
follows that and so, for the divergence theorem:

But because ,

= 0 for the argument above (

and then )

And so the flux through a closed surface generated by some charge density outside (the surface) is null.

Let's consider now , and as the sphere centered in having as radius (it exists
because is an open set).

Let and be the electric field created inside \ outside the sphere:

= , = and + =

The last equality follows by observing that , and the argument above.

The RHS is the electric flux generated by a charged sphere, and so:

Where the last equality follows by the mean value theorem for integrals. Finally for the Squeeze theorem
and the continuity of :

Deriving Coulomb's law from Gauss's law

Strictly speaking, Coulomb's law cannot be derived from Gauss's law alone, since Gauss's law does not
give any information regarding the curl of E (see Helmholtz decomposition and Faraday's law).
However, Coulomb's law can be proven from Gauss's law if it is assumed, in addition, that the electric
field from a point charge is spherically symmetric (this assumption, like Coulomb's law itself, is exactly
true if the charge is stationary, and approximately true if the charge is in motion).

Outline of proof
Taking S in the integral form of Gauss' law to be a spherical surface of
radius r, centered at the point charge Q, we have
 By the assumption of spherical symmetry, the integrand is a constant
which can be taken out of the integral. The result is

where r ̂ is a unit vector pointing radially away from the charge. Again
by spherical symmetry, E points in the radial direction, and so we get

which is essentially equivalent to Coulomb's law. Thus the inverse-

square law dependence of the electric field in Coulomb's law follows
from Gauss' law.

See also
Method of image charges
Uniqueness theorem for Poisson's equation

Notes
1. The other three of Maxwell's equations are: Gauss's law for magnetism, Faraday's law of
induction, and Ampère's law with Maxwell's correction
2. More specifically, the infinitesimal area is thought of as planar and with area dA. The vector
dA is normal to this area element and has magnitude dA.[7]

Citations
1. Duhem, Pierre. Leçons sur l'électricité et le magnétisme (https://archive.org/stream/leonssur
llec01duheuoft#page/22/mode/2up) (in French). vol. 1, ch. 4, p. 22–23. shows that
Lagrange has priority over Gauss. Others after Gauss discovered "Gauss' Law", too.
2. Lagrange, Joseph-Louis (1773). "Sur l'attraction des sphéroïdes elliptiques" (https://books.g
oogle.com/books?id=4XkAAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA619). Mémoires de l'Académie de Berlin (in
French): 125.
3. Gauss, Carl Friedrich. Theoria attractionis corporum sphaeroidicorum ellipticorum
homogeneorum methodo nova tractata (https://books.google.com/books?id=0TxeAAAAcAA
J&pg=PA3) (in Latin). (Gauss, Werke, vol. V, p. 1). Gauss mentions Newton's Principia
proposition XCI (https://archive.org/stream/newtonspmathema00newtrich#page/n243/mode/
2up) regarding finding the force exerted by a sphere on a point anywhere along an axis
passing through the sphere.
4. Halliday, David; Resnick, Robert (1970). Fundamentals of Physics. John Wiley & Sons.
pp. 452–453.
5. Serway, Raymond A. (1996). Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics (4th
ed.). p. 687.
 6. Grant, I. S.; Phillips, W. R. (2008). Electromagnetism. Manchester Physics (2nd ed.). John
Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-92712-9.
7. Matthews, Paul (1998). Vector Calculus. Springer. ISBN 3-540-76180-2.
8. Pathak, Ishnath (2011). "A Generalization of Gauss's Theorem in Electrostatics" (http://ww
w.electrostatics.org/esa2011proceedings.html). Proceedings of the 2011 ESA Annual
Meeting on Electrostatics: C3.
9. See, for example, Griffiths, David J. (2013). Introduction to Electrodynamics (4th ed.).
Prentice Hall. p. 50.

References
Gauss, Carl Friedrich (1867). Werke Band 5. Digital version (http://resolver.sub.uni-goetting
en.de/purl?PPN236006339)
Jackson, John David (1998). Classical Electrodynamics (3rd ed.). New York: Wiley. ISBN 0-
471-30932-X. David J. Griffiths (6th ed.)

External links
MIT Video Lecture Series (30 x 50 minute lectures)- Electricity and Magnetism (https://web.
archive.org/web/20080628181946/http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/Physics/8-02Electricity-and-
MagnetismSpring2002/VideoAndCaptions/) Taught by Professor Walter Lewin.
section on Gauss's law in an online textbook (http://www.lightandmatter.com/html_books/0s
n/ch10/ch10.html#Section10.6)
MISN-0-132 Gauss's Law for Spherical Symmetry (http://www.physnet.org/modules/pdf_mod
ules/m132.pdf) (PDF file) by Peter Signell for Project PHYSNET (http://www.physnet.org).
MISN-0-133 Gauss's Law Applied to Cylindrical and Planar Charge Distributions (http://www.
physnet.org/modules/pdf_modules/m133.pdf) (PDF file) by Peter Signell for Project
PHYSNET (http://www.physnet.org).

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