Gauss’s law for magnetic fields 53

2.2 The differential form of Gauss’s law

The continuous nature of magnetic field lines makes the differential form
of Gauss’s law for magnetic fields quite simple. The differential form is
written as
~ !~
r B ¼ 0 Gauss’s law for magnetic fields ðdifferential formÞ:
The left side of this equation is a mathematical description of the
divergence of the magnetic field – the tendency of the magnetic field to
‘‘flow’’ more strongly away from a point than toward it – while the right
side is simply zero.
The divergence of the magnetic field is discussed in detail in the fol-
lowing section. For now, make sure you grasp the main idea of Gauss’s
law in differential form:

The divergence of the magnetic field at any point is zero.

One way to understand why this is true is by analogy with the electric
field, for which the divergence at any location is proportional to the
electric charge density at that location. Since it is not possible to isolate
magnetic poles, you can’t have a north pole without a south pole, and the
‘‘magnetic charge density’’ must be zero everywhere. This means that the
divergence of the magnetic field must also be zero.
To help you understand the meaning of each symbol in Gauss’s law for
magnetic fields, here is an expanded view:

Reminder that the Reminder that the magnetic

del operator is a vector field is a vector

 B=0
The magnetic
field in Teslas

The differential The dot product turns

operator called the del operator into the
“del” or “nabla” divergence
54 A Student’s guide to Maxwell’s Equations

~ !~
r B The divergence of the magnetic field
This expression is the entire left side of the differential form of Gauss’s
law, and it represents the divergence of the magnetic field. Since diver-
gence is by definition the tendency of a field to ‘‘flow’’ away from a point
more strongly than toward that point, and since no point sources or sinks
of the magnetic field have ever been found, the amount of ‘‘incoming’’
field is exactly the same as the amount of ‘‘outgoing’’ field at every point.
So it should not surprise you to find that the divergence of ~ B is always
zero.
To verify this for the case of the magnetic field around a long, current-
carrying wire, take the divergence of the expression for the wire’s mag-
netic field as given in Table 2.1:
!
~ !~ ~! l I
divð~
BÞ ¼ r B ¼r 0
’
^ : ð2:6Þ
2pr
This is most easily determined using cylindrical coordinates:

~ !~ 1@ 1 @Bf @Bz
r B¼ ðrBr Þ þ þ : ð2:7Þ
r @r r @f @z
which, since ~
B has only a u-component, is

~ !~ 1 @ ðl0 I=2pr Þ
r B¼ ¼ 0: ð2:8Þ
r @’
You can understand this result using the following reasoning: since
the magnetic field makes circular loops around the wire, it has no radial
or z-dependence. And since the u-component has no u-dependence (that
is, the magnetic field has constant amplitude around any circular path
centered on the wire), the flux away from any point must be the same as
the flux toward that point. This means that the divergence of the mag-
netic field is zero everywhere.
Vector fields with zero divergence are called ‘‘solenoidal’’ fields, and all
magnetic fields are solenoidal.