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Taylor expansion of charge density in Jackson's book

Physics Asked by anbhadane on November 18, 2020

I am learning from Jackson (3r edition), where I found one concept very confusing, that is Taylor expansion of charge density. (This is given in section "1.7 Poisson and Laplace equations" p.n:35)

I will write some equations first.

$$ {Phi}_a(x) = frac{1}{4{pi}{epsilon_0}}int frac{{rho}(x’)}{sqrt{(x – x’)^2 + a^2}}d^3x’ $$

Now we want to find out potential such that a tends to zero.
$$ nabla^2{Phi}_a(x) = frac{1}{4{pi}{epsilon_0}}int{rho}(x’) nabla^2frac{1}{(r^2 + a^2)^frac{1}{2}}d^3x’ $$

$$ nabla^2{Phi}_a(x) = -frac{1}{4{pi}{epsilon_0}}int{rho}(x’) frac{3a^2}{(r^2 + a^2)^frac{5}{2}}d^3x’ $$

I understood this until above step, but now I didn’t got the next step

$$ nabla^2{Phi}_a(x) = -frac{1}{{epsilon_0}}int_0^R frac{3a^2}{(r^2 + a^2)^frac{5}{2}} left[{rho}(x) + frac{r^2}{6}nabla^2{rho} + ……. right]r^2 dr + O(a^2) $$

Jackson says that we gonna expand ${rho}(x’)$ around x’ = x., but the expansion of ${rho}(x’)$ should also contain the first order derivative of ${rho}(x’)$ like $nabla{rho}$, also the taylor expansion of the second term should contain 2 at the denominator but it’s 6, and how the last term of $O(a^2)$

So what I am thinking is that Taylor expansion should be $left[{rho}(x) + rnabla{rho} + frac{r^2}{2}nabla^2{rho}right]$

I know I am wrong but I don’t know what is the answer. Any help is appreciated.

One Answer

Firstly, your form of Taylor expansion is wrong. The right form is here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taylor_series#Taylor_series_in_several_variables . It seems like a special condition with a parameter $R$, and the integrals of some Taylor terms are zero. As it is not mentioned in the book, these zero integrals should be analyzed by symmetry.

Correct answer by xyzrggong on November 18, 2020

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