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Electric Field at center of hollow sphere split into two hemispheres

Physics Asked on April 23, 2021

I have a hollow sphere which I will assume is conducting. From my understanding of Electromagnetism the Electric field at the center of the hollow sphere would be zero.

If I were to separate the sphere into two hemispheres and insulate them from each other, providing there are no additional components this again would keep the Electric field at the center zero.

However if I raised the potential of one Hemisphere and kept the other at zero then I assume I would find a value for the Electric field at the center of the sphere to be non-zero?

I am unsure if my logic here is correct.

If someone could provide clarity on this for me I would appreciate it.

2 Answers

I think some more clarification is needed. Is the sphere perfectly conducting? Is it a conducting shell with vacuum inside? Are you assuming a charge distribution on the shell that creates the electric field? It is definitely possible to have a non-zero field in the center of a sphere if the charge distribution is asymmetric.

Answered by Jakob KS on April 23, 2021

I hope I've understood your question right. In case of two perfectly conducting hemispheres separated by an infinitesimal layer of vacuum that prevents the charges from moving, the charges on the spheres would not remain uniformly distributed, but redistribute themselves on the surfaces of the spheres. They will redistribute in such a way that the electric field inside the conductors vanishes everywhere, in a manner somewhat similar to that shown here: enter image description here

Between the two hemispheres (neglecting fringing effects at the edges), the field will look like that of a parallel plate capacitor of infinitesimal thickness. In the layer of vacuum between the hemispheres, there will be an electric field pointing from the positive to the negative charges and of magnitude $E = $rho_s / epsilon_0$, where $rho_s$ is the (positive) surface charge density on the charged sphere in this region. There is no problem having an electric field in the center of the sphere in this case.

Answered by Jakob KS on April 23, 2021

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