CALCULUS III

CHAPTER 3 All about the operator

• Scalar and vector fields

Operator
• Gradient, Divergence, Curl, Laplacian
Vector functions and vector fields

• A scalar function 𝑓: ℝ𝑚 → ℝ takes values in space ℝ𝑚

and gives a number, these are called scalar fields.
Example: The temperature T(r) in a room is a scalar field.

• A vector-valued function (or simply vector function)

Ԧ ℝ𝑚 → ℝ𝑛 takes values in space ℝ𝑚 and gives a
𝑓:
vector in ℝ𝑛 (𝑛 > 1), these are called vector fields.
Example:
- the electromagnetic field is a vector field.
- the velocity field of a fluid is a vector field.
- the position in ℝ3 of a particle at a given time t is a
vector field (with m=1, n=3)
Vector functions and vector fields

Ԧ ℝ3 → ℝ3
Most of the time we will consider vector fields such as 𝐹:

Example: the gradient of a scalar field U: ℝ3 → ℝ is a vector field

Properties:
The Del operator

 Applied to a scalar field U(x,y,z), it gives the gradient of U, which is a vector field

 Applied to a vector field , we have two possibilities:

scalar product DIVERGENCE of F

The output is a scalar field

cross product

CURL of F
The output is a vector field
DIVERGENCE (scalar field)
CURL (vector field)
Del operator of combinations of scalar and vector fields
Let be scalar fields
Combination Scalar field Vector field
Let be vector fields 

Now recall chain’s rule 



 Del operator of combinations of scalar and vector fields

Recall that

So if G is a vector field G=(G1 , G2 , G3 ), then it’s also legitimate to construct the following fields:
Applying Del twice

Where the last case allows the definition of a new operator, the LAPLACIAN, that applied
to a scalar field U reads