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A moving (not spinning!) point charge will create a magnetic field, but it is pretty difficult to derive the formula detailing the magnitude of the field at a distance $r$. However, my friend is convinced that you can use Biot-Savart's law to derive the relationship, but I don't think you can because the point charge does not have a defined current, and you can't take a path integral along a wire because the wire is nonexistent. Therefore, my question is: Can you use Biot-Savart's law to derive the formula for the magnetic field generated by a moving point charge?

Any help would be appreciated!

Edit: I know what the formula is for a moving charge, I just wanted to make sure that the Biot-Savart law does not imply that this formula is true.

2 Answers2

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No you cannot use biot savart law.

Biot savart law is derived using the equation:

$ \int B \cdot dl = \mu_0 I$

$\nabla × \vec{B} = \mu_0 \vec{J}$

taking the divergence of this gives

$\nabla \cdot J = 0$

the current density of a point charge doesn't follow this.

You are probably only familiar with the line integral version.The biot savart law is actually a volume integral, using current density instead.

The issue isn't that a path isnt defined as we can easily use a volume integral. The issue is that we are deriving under the assumption that the divergence of current density is zero.

Naively plugging the current density of a point charge into biot savart law looks like the following (through the magnetic vector potential):

$\nabla × A = B$

$\nabla × (\nabla × A) = \mu_0 J$

$\nabla(\nabla \cdot A) - \nabla^2 A = \mu_0 J$

Set $\nabla \cdot A = 0 $ due to field invariance

$\nabla^2 A = -\mu_0 J$

$ A(r',t) =\iiint \frac{\mu_0}{4\pi} \frac{J(r',t)}{|r-r'|} d^3r'$

for a point charge

$J(r',t) = Q r_{s}'(t)\delta^3(r'-r_{s}(t))$

where $ r_{s}(t) $is the position vector of the charge

A =$\iiint \frac{Q\mu_0}{4\pi} \frac{ r_{s}'(t)\delta^3(r'-r_{s}(t))}{|r-r'|} d^3r'$

= $\frac{Q\mu_0}{4\pi} \frac{r_{s}'(t)}{|r-r_{s}(t)|}$

$B = \nabla × (\frac{Q\mu_0}{4\pi} \frac{r_{s}'(t)}{|r-r_{s}(t)|})$

Changing coordinates such that$ |r-r_{s}(t)|$ is just radial distance R from the charge,

$ \frac{Q\mu_0}{4\pi} \nabla × ( \frac{r_{s}'(t)}{R})$

=$ \frac{Q\mu_0}{4\pi} (\nabla(\frac{1}{R}) × r_{s}'(t) +\frac{1}{R}\nabla × r_{s}'(t) ) $

=$ \frac{Q\mu_0}{4\pi} \nabla(\frac{1}{R}) ×r_{s}'(t) $

=$ -\frac{Q\mu_0}{4\pi} \frac{\hat r ×r_{s}'(t)}{R^2} $

=$ -\frac{Q\mu_0}{4\pi} \frac{\hat r ×v}{R^2} $

=$ \frac{Q\mu_0}{4\pi} \frac{v×\hat r}{R^2} $

This is the "quasi static" formula.

The real and correct formula, is derived from the lienard wichert potentials, using amperes law with maxwells displacement current.

jensen paull
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This is backwards. You can use the field of a moving charge to find the field of a current element, by superposition. This is how is done , for example in a textbook like Young and Freedman (University Pysics). If you know the expression for the Biot-Savart law you may try to guess where does it come from (the field of a moving charge) but this I would not call this a derivation.

nasu
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