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Maxwell's equations formulas

Maxwell's equations, Faraday's law, boundary conditions and the Poynting vector. 38 formulas for GATE EC, EE, IN Electromagnetics, each with when to use it. Each is explained in the topic notes.

All 38 Maxwell's equations formulas

FARADAY'S LAW (FLUX RULE)

is the flux linkage of tightly wound turns. Holds for any closed circuit of thin wire, stationary or moving, including a bar sliding on rails. Where the current path through a moving conductor is not a definite wire (a rotating disc), compute the emf from the integral below instead. A positive emf drives current in the sense that is right-handed about the used to compute .

TRANSFORMER EMF (STATIONARY PATH)

Path fixed in space, changing with time.

MOTIONAL EMF

Conductor moving with velocity through ; only the moving segments contribute. Between the ends and of an open-circuited rod, : the end towards which points is positive.

FARADAY'S LAW, POINT FORM

Stokes' theorem applied to the transformer emf; holds at every point. In static fields (E is conservative); with a time-varying it is not.

COIL ROTATING IN A UNIFORM STATIC FIELD

-turn coil of area rotating at rad/s about an axis perpendicular to , with the coil plane perpendicular to at .

EMF OF A COIL LINKED BY A SINUSOIDAL FLUX

Stationary -turn coil, every turn linked by the same flux of peak value at frequency (). The peak emf is , and the emf lags the flux by .

SELF- AND MUTUALLY INDUCED EMF

Coils fixed in place in a linear magnetic medium. is the flux that a coil's own current sets up through each of its turns; is the flux produced by through each of the turns of coil 2, and is the emf induced in coil 2 by a changing . The minus sign is Lenz's law. Treated as a circuit element with the passive sign convention, the voltage across an inductor is .

ROD ROTATING ABOUT ONE END (FARADAY DISC)

Rod of length rotating at in a plane perpendicular to a uniform static , pivoted at one end; also the emf between axle and rim of a disc of radius .

CONTINUITY EQUATION (CHARGE CONSERVATION)

Always true. For steady currents , the field form of KCL.

DISPLACEMENT CURRENT

A/m²; exists wherever changes with time, including in vacuum. Phasor form in a linear medium: .

AMPÈRE–MAXWELL LAW, POINT FORM

is the free (conduction or convection) current density; in a conductor .

DISPLACEMENT CURRENT IN A PARALLEL-PLATE CAPACITOR

Plate area , gap , uniform field (fringing neglected); equals the conduction current in the leads.

CONDUCTION TO DISPLACEMENT CURRENT RATIO (LOSS TANGENT)

Time-harmonic field in a medium with conductivity and real permittivity : and are apart, with leading.

MAXWELL'S EQUATIONS, POINT FORM

General time-varying fields; and are free charge and free current densities.

MAXWELL'S EQUATIONS, INTEGRAL FORM

Stationary surfaces and paths. In the last two lines is any surface bounded by , with right-handed about , and .

CONSTITUTIVE RELATIONS

Linear, isotropic, homogeneous media. In general and .

LORENTZ FORCE

Force on a point charge moving with velocity ; the magnetic part does no work because it is perpendicular to .

MAXWELL'S EQUATIONS, PHASOR (TIME-HARMONIC) FORM

Fields varying as in a linear medium. The last line assumes the only current is conduction current (no impressed source current).

GENERAL BOUNDARY CONDITIONS (VECTOR FORM)

is the unit normal pointing from medium 2 into medium 1. Valid for static and time-varying fields.

GENERAL BOUNDARY CONDITIONS (COMPONENT FORM)

Normal components are taken along (from 2 into 1). Only the tangential H component perpendicular to jumps, and it jumps by the magnitude of .

DIELECTRIC–DIELECTRIC INTERFACE (NO FREE SURFACE CHARGE)

Two perfect dielectrics with : tangential E and normal D are continuous, while normal E and tangential D jump.

REFRACTION OF FIELD LINES AT A DIELECTRIC INTERFACE

measured from the normal, charge-free interface. The field makes the larger angle with the normal in the medium of higher permittivity.

MAGNETIC INTERFACE (NO SURFACE CURRENT)

Any interface between media of finite conductivity, where ; from the normal.

SURFACE OF A PERFECT ELECTRIC CONDUCTOR

Medium 2 is a perfect conductor (), inside which time-varying are all zero; points out of the conductor. At the surface E is purely normal and H purely tangential.

WAVE EQUATION (TIME DOMAIN)

Source-free, linear, homogeneous, isotropic medium; obeys the same equation. Lossless (): .

HELMHOLTZ (PHASOR WAVE) EQUATION

Time-harmonic fields () in the same medium; the same equation holds for .

PROPAGATION CONSTANT AND INTRINSIC IMPEDANCE

(Np/m) is the attenuation constant and (rad/m) the phase constant; take the root with , and the root of with a non-negative real part. , so in a lossless medium and in a lossy one (approaching in a good conductor); H lags E in time by .

LOSSLESS MEDIUM

, so and is real: E and H are in phase.

UNIFORM PLANE WAVE TRAVELLING IN +Z

real. A wave travelling in has and ; its amplitude decreases as it travels towards .

E AND H OF A UNIFORM PLANE WAVE

Wave travelling along the unit vector in a homogeneous medium: , and are mutually perpendicular, and points along . Example: along , travel along gives along .

PHASOR AND INSTANTANEOUS FIELD

Sinusoidal steady state at a single frequency; e.g. ( real) corresponds to .

POYNTING VECTOR (INSTANTANEOUS)

Uses the real time-domain fields, never the phasors.

POYNTING'S THEOREM (INTEGRAL FORM)

Fixed volume bounded by the closed surface (outward ), linear non-dispersive medium, and the only current inside is conduction current . The left side is the total power leaving through ; so net power flowing in = rate of rise of stored energy + ohmic loss. With an impressed source current inside, the power it supplies, , is added to the right side.

ENERGY DENSITIES

Linear medium: instantaneous values, then time averages for time-harmonic fields with peak phasors. For a single uniform plane wave in a lossless medium at every instant, because .

TIME-AVERAGE POYNTING VECTOR

Time-harmonic fields with peak-value phasors; with rms phasors drop the . Since only the real part is kept, , but one of the two must be conjugated.

AVERAGE POWER DENSITY OF A PLANE WAVE, LOSSLESS MEDIUM

and are peak amplitudes; in free space . For a wave along of any polarisation, replace by . Equivalently : the stored energy is carried along at .

AVERAGE POWER DENSITY OF A PLANE WAVE, LOSSY MEDIUM

Wave with , so . Power decays as , twice the exponent of the field.

TOTAL POWER THROUGH A SURFACE

If the area is tilted by angle between its normal and , multiply by .

Where this was asked: 2022 (2), 2023 (1), 2025 (1), 2026 (1). See the 5 previous-year questions on Maxwell's equations. This shows what was asked, not what will be asked.