4.

5 Polarisation of a Sphere in an Electric Field Eo 97

4.5 Polarisation of a Sphere in an Electric Field Eo

The spheret is electrically neutral (i.e. originally uncharged, p = 0) and is
assumed to be made of a material with dielectric constant 2 . The externally
applied electric field Eo is taken to be homogeneous and parallel to the unit
vector e, in a medium with dielectric constant 1. We take the centre of the
sphere as the origin of the frame of coordinates as shown in Fig. 4.7.

I
Fig. 4.7 A spherical dielectric in the field Eo.

The polarisation charges on the surface give the sphere the appearance of a
dipole placed at the origin and pointing in the direction of z (we shall see
that the induced volume charge density in the sphere, i.e. p p , vanishes). Let
Ei be the field E inside the sphere and E, the field outside.
We begin by writing down the equations of (now macroscopic) electro-
statics for inside and outside the sphere and homogeneous, linearly isotropic
dielectrics ( p = 0 implies no true charges):

V-D=0, D =QE+P=EE,
(4.21)
P.n=ap, V.P=-pp
and
VxE=O, E=-Vp. (4.22)
From these equations we obtain

+The following considerations correspond to those of a sphere. In the case of a cylinder some
differences arise as can be seen e.g. in the steps from Eq. (4.24) to Eq. (4.25). The case of the
cylinder is treated in Example 4.5.