Hi everyone,
I'm having a little difficulty trying to calculate the self-energy of a uniformly charged sphere of radius a. That is, the work done in assembling such a distribution of charge. It is to my understanding that
0.5*integral(ρ*ø(r)dV)
should produce the answer, with ρ being the charge density (constant), ø(r) being some potential, and V being the volume of the sphere. However, I can't figure out what this potential is. Should it be the potential of a spherical shell, ie. Q/(4*pi*epsi0*[r^2])? I tried this but can't get the corrent answer out.
Many thanks in advance,
Will
I'm having a little difficulty trying to calculate the self-energy of a uniformly charged sphere of radius a. That is, the work done in assembling such a distribution of charge. It is to my understanding that
0.5*integral(ρ*ø(r)dV)
should produce the answer, with ρ being the charge density (constant), ø(r) being some potential, and V being the volume of the sphere. However, I can't figure out what this potential is. Should it be the potential of a spherical shell, ie. Q/(4*pi*epsi0*[r^2])? I tried this but can't get the corrent answer out.
Many thanks in advance,
Will
