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Question on Ampere's Law and Solenoid

Physics Asked by EDAGT on January 18, 2021

Just came across magnetic field inside a solenoid and amperes law. Amperes law says that dot product of magnetic field and distance from current would give us the $mu_p$ times the current enclosed. If we put an amperes loop inside a solenoid, would the magnetic field be zero as the current enclosed is zero?

2 Answers

Amperes law says that dot product of magnetic field and distance from current would give us the $mu_p$ times the current enclosed.

This is not what Ampere's law says. Ampere's law refers to the line integral $$ointmathbf Bcdottext dmathbf l=mu_0I_text{enc}$$

The line integral is not a single dot product, nor is $text dmathbf l$ a distance from the current source. Rather, the line integral is an infinite, continuous sum of dot products and $text dmathbf l$ is an infinitesimal displacement along the Amperian loop.

If we put an amperes loop inside a solenoid, would the magnetic field be zero as the current enclosed is zero?

Since $I_text{enc}=0$ we know that the line integral $ointmathbf Bcdottext dmathbf l=0$. However, in general this doesn't tell us what $mathbf B$ is along the Amperian loop, as the value of an integral does not uniquely determine the value of the integrand along the region of integration.

For a uniform, infinite solenoid though you can use Ampere's law and symmetry arguments to determine the field within the solenoid, and then it would be easy to see how a line integral along an Amperian loop within the solenoid evaluates to $0$, but this latter step would then be using what $mathbf B$ is rather than determining it.

Answered by BioPhysicist on January 18, 2021

There is a catch, Ampere's law has not said that the field would be zero. Instead, it says line integral of the field along a loop will be equal to zero; fields inside the solenoid can't be zero.

Answered by Jack Rod on January 18, 2021

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