ELECTROMAGNETIC THEORY 2019-20

Practice Problems No. III: April 10, 2020

1. (a) A charge Q is uniformly spread over a spherical shell of radius R. Find the volume
charge density ρ(x).

(b) A charge λ is spread uniformly over a cylindrical surface of radius b. Find the
volume charge density.

(c) A charge Q is spread uniformly spread over a thin circular disk of negligible thick-
ness and radius R. Find the volume charge density ρ(x) in spherical coordinates.

2. A parallel plate capacitor at rest in a frame S0 and is tilted at an angle 45◦ to the
x0 axis. The plates carry a charge density ±σ0 on the two plates. Another frame S is
moving to the right (along x0 direction) at a speed of v relative to S0 . Find
a) E0 in S0 .
b) E in S.
c) Angle which the plates make with the x axis in S
d) Is the field perpendicular to the plates in S?

3. Show that the covariant components of the dual of the electromagnetic field tensor,
viz. ? Fαβ = 12 αβµν F µν , are obtained from the corresponding contravariant components,
viz. ? F αβ = 21 αβµν Fµν , under the interchange E → E and B → −B.

4. Find the Fourier transform of a Gaussian

1 t2
h(t) = √ e− 2σ2
2πσ 2
What can you say about the relationship between the spread in the time and the
frequency domains for a Gaussian?

5. By the method of Fourier transforms, solve the equation

∂u ∂u
2 +2 =0
∂x ∂t
with the initial condition
u(x, 0) = f (x)
.

1
6. By the method of Fourier transforms, solve the equation

∂u ∂u
+ +u=0
∂x ∂t
with the initial condition
u(x, 0) = f (x)
.

7. Find the Green Function G(r) for the time independent Klein-Gordon equation

(∇2 − m2 )G(r) = δ(r)