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org/wiki/Electric_potential

Electric potential
The electric potential (also called the electric field
potential, potential drop, the electrostatic potential) is
the amount of work energy needed to move a unit of electric
charge from a reference point to the specific point in an
electric field with negligible acceleration of the test charge
to avoid producing kinetic energy or radiation by test
charge. Typically, the reference point is the Earth or a point
at infinity, although any point can be used. More precisely it
is the energy per unit charge for a small test charge that
does not disturb significantly the field and the charge
distribution producing the field under consideration.
Electric potential around two oppositely
In classical electrostatics, the electrostatic field is a vector charged conducting spheres. Purple
quantity which is expressed as the gradient of the represents the highest potential, yellow
electrostatic potential, which is a scalar quantity denoted by zero, and cyan the lowest potential. The
V or occasionally φ,[1] equal to the electric potential energy electric field lines are shown leaving
of any charged particle at any location (measured in joules) perpendicularly to the surface of each
divided by the charge of that particle (measured in sphere.
coulombs). By dividing out the charge on the particle a
quotient is obtained that is a property of the electric field
itself. In short, electric potential is the electric potential energy electric potential
per unit charge. Common V, φ
symbols
This value can be calculated in either a static (time-invariant) or a
SI unit volt
dynamic (varying with time) electric field at a specific time in
units of joules per coulomb (J⋅C−1), or volts (V). The electric Other units statvolt
potential at infinity is assumed to be zero. In SI base units V=
kg⋅m2⋅A−1⋅s−3
In electrodynamics, when time-varying fields are present, the
electric field cannot be expressed only in terms of a scalar Extensive? yes
potential. Instead, the electric field can be expressed in terms of Dimension M L2 T−3 I−1
both the scalar electric potential and the magnetic vector
potential.[2] The electric potential and the magnetic vector potential together form a four vector, so
that the two kinds of potential are mixed under Lorentz transformations.

Practically, electric potential is always a continuous function in space; Otherwise, the spatial
derivative of it will yield a field with infinite magnitude, which is practically impossible. Even an
idealized point charge has 1 ∕ r potential, which is continuous everywhere except the origin. The
electric field is not continuous across an idealized surface charge, but it is not infinite at any point.
Therefore, the electric potential is continuous across an idealized surface charge. An idealized linear
charge has ln(r) potential, which is continuous everywhere except on the linear charge.

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Contents
Introduction
Electrostatics
Electric potential due to a point charge
Generalization to electrodynamics
Units
Galvani potential versus electrochemical potential
See also
References
Further reading

Introduction
Classical mechanics explores concepts such as force, energy, and potential.[3] Force and potential
energy are directly related. A net force acting on any object will cause it to accelerate. As an object
moves in the direction in which the force accelerates it, its potential energy decreases. For example,
the gravitational potential energy of a cannonball at the top of a hill is greater than at the base of the
hill. As it rolls downhill its potential energy decreases, being translated to motion, kinetic energy.

It is possible to define the potential of certain force fields so that the potential energy of an object in
that field depends only on the position of the object with respect to the field. Two such force fields are
the gravitational field and an electric field (in the absence of time-varying magnetic fields). Such fields
must affect objects due to the intrinsic properties of the object (e.g., mass or charge) and the position
of the object.

Objects may possess a property known as electric charge and an electric field exerts a force on charged
objects. If the charged object has a positive charge the force will be in the direction of the electric field
vector at that point while if the charge is negative the force will be in the opposite direction. The
magnitude of the force is given by the quantity of the charge multiplied by the magnitude of the
electric field vector.

Electrostatics
The electric potential at a point r in a static electric field E is given by the line integral

where C is an arbitrary path connecting the point with zero potential to r. When the curl ∇ × E is zero,
the line integral above does not depend on the specific path C chosen but only on its endpoints. In this

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Electric potential of separate positive and negative point charges shown as color range from magenta (+), through
yellow (0), to cyan (-). Circular contours are equipotential lines. Electric field lines leave the positive charge and
enter the negative charge.

case, the electric field is conservative and

determined by the gradient of the potential:

Then, by Gauss's law, the potential satisfies

Poisson's equation:

Electric potential in the vicinity of two opposite point charges.

where ρ is the total charge density (including bound charge) and ∇· denotes the divergence.

The concept of electric potential is closely linked with potential energy. A test charge q has an electric
potential energy UE given by

The potential energy and hence also the electric potential is only defined up to an additive constant:
one must arbitrarily choose a position where the potential energy and the electric potential are zero.

These equations cannot be used if the curl ∇ × E ≠ 0, i.e., in the case of a non-conservative electric
field (caused by a changing magnetic field; see Maxwell's equations). The generalization of electric
potential to this case is described below.

Electric potential due to a point charge

The electric potential arising from a point charge Q, at a distance r from the charge is observed to be

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where ε0 is the permittivity of vacuum.[4] VE is known as the Coulomb

potential.

The electric potential for a system of point charges is equal to the sum of
the point charges' individual potentials. This fact simplifies calculations
significantly, because addition of potential (scalar) fields is much easier
than addition of the electric (vector) fields. Specifically, the potential of a
set of discrete point charges qi at points ri becomes
The electric potential
created by a charge Q is
V=Q/(4πε0r). Different
values of Q will make
and the potential of a continuous charge distribution ρ(r) becomes different values of
electric potential V
(shown in the image).

The equations given above for the electric potential (and all the equations used here) are in the forms
required by SI units. In some other (less common) systems of units, such as CGS-Gaussian, many of
these equations would be altered.

Generalization to electrodynamics
When time-varying magnetic fields are present (which is true whenever there are time-varying
electric fields and vice versa), it is not possible to describe the electric field simply in terms of a scalar
potential V because the electric field is no longer conservative: is path-dependent because
(Faraday's law of induction).

Instead, one can still define a scalar potential by also including the magnetic vector potential A. In
particular, A is defined to satisfy:

where B is the magnetic field. Because the divergence of the magnetic field is always zero due to the
absence of magnetic monopoles, such an A can always be found. Given this, the quantity

is a conservative field by Faraday's law and one can therefore write

where V is the scalar potential defined by the conservative field F.

The electrostatic potential is simply the special case of this definition where A is time-invariant. On
the other hand, for time-varying fields,

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unlike electrostatics.

Units
The SI derived unit of electric potential is the volt (in honor of Alessandro Volta), which is why a
difference in electric potential between two points is known as voltage. Older units are rarely used
today. Variants of the centimetre–gram–second system of units included a number of different units
for electric potential, including the abvolt and the statvolt.

Galvani potential versus electrochemical potential

Inside metals (and other solids and liquids), the energy of an electron is affected not only by the
electric potential, but also by the specific atomic environment that it is in. When a voltmeter is
connected between two different types of metal, it measures not the electric potential difference, but
instead the potential difference corrected for the different atomic environments.[5] The quantity
measured by a voltmeter is called electrochemical potential or fermi level, while the pure unadjusted
electric potential V is sometimes called Galvani potential . The terms "voltage" and "electric
potential" are a bit ambiguous in that, in practice, they can refer to either of these in different
contexts.

See also
Absolute electrode potential
Electrochemical potential
Electrode potential

References
1. Goldstein, Herbert (June 1959). Classical Mechanics. United States: Addison-Wesley. p. 383.
ISBN 0201025108.
2. Griffiths, David J. Introduction to Electrodynamics. Pearson Prentice Hall. pp. 416–417.
ISBN 978-81-203-1601-0.
3. Young, Hugh A.; Freedman, Roger D. (2012). Sears and Zemansky's University Physics with
Modern Physics (13th ed.). Boston: Addison-Wesley. p. 754.
4. "2018 CODATA Value: vacuum electric permittivity" (http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?ep0)
. The NIST Reference on Constants, Units, and Uncertainty. NIST. 20 May 2019. Retrieved
2019-05-20.
5. Bagotskii VS (2006). Fundamentals of electrochemistry (https://books.google.com/books?id=09QI
-assq1cC&pg=PA22). p. 22. ISBN 978-0-471-70058-6.

Further reading

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Politzer P, Truhlar DG (1981). Chemical Applications of Atomic and Molecular Electrostatic

Potentials: Reactivity, Structure, Scattering, and Energetics of Organic, Inorganic, and Biological
Systems. Boston, MA: Springer US. ISBN 978-1-4757-9634-6.
Sen K, Murray JS (1996). Molecular Electrostatic Potentials: Concepts and Applications.
Amsterdam: Elsevier. ISBN 978-0-444-82353-3.
Griffiths DJ (1999). Introduction to Electrodynamics (https://archive.org/details/introductiontoel00g
rif_0) (3rd. ed.). Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-805326-X.
Jackson JD (1999). Classical Electrodynamics (3rd. ed.). USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
ISBN 978-0-471-30932-1.
Wangsness RK (1986). Electromagnetic Fields (2nd., Revised, illustrated ed.). Wiley.
ISBN 978-0-471-81186-2.

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