Electric field inside a conductor

In summary: There are no simple answers to any of these questions. It certainly isn't a simple "oh, I forgot to take into account the effect of gravity" type of problem. I've seen enough of these type of problems to sense when something is not as simple as it looks. If you want to ignore other effects, then qualify your problem. Otherwise, I can come up with a bunch of other things that can make your solution look even more "trivial".In summary, the problem is to compute the electric field inside and outside a solid aluminium bar with a radius of R and length of L, which is placed vertically on an insulating surface and has a total charge of zero. However, the community
  • #36
Phlogistonian said:
Gravity affects the ions too. They don't move much relative to each other, but they do move. The whole lattice will move, like an iron cage sinking in water.

http://prola.aps.org/abstract/PR/v151/i4/p1067_1" :smile:
 
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  • #37
Hmm...
Gravitation-Induced Electric Field near a Metal
L. I. Schiff and M. V. Barnhill

Abstract
A quantum-mechanical formalism is developed to calculate the electric field produced in the vicinity of a metallic object through the influence of the Earth's gravitation. The field is proportional to the gradient of the ground-state energy eigenvalue of the object with respect to the position of a test charge located at the field point. This expression can be reduced to the solution of a problem in classical electrostatics, and is valid as well for a superconductor. Simple explicit results are obtained for the field within a closed metallic shell of arbitrary shape, and outside of a metallic sphere. In the former case, the field is uniform and equal to mg / e, directed so as to exert an upward force on an electron; m and e are the electron mass and charge, and g is the acceleration of gravity. This result is of importance in connection with current experiments on the free fall of electrons and positrons, and leads to the expectation that shielded electrons will not fall, while shielded positrons will fall with acceleration 2g. Some comments are made on the gravitation-induced electric field near a nonconductor, and on the field near a rapidly rotating solid.

I'll think about that.
 
  • #38
Hey, Count, did you guys ever resolve this question or find any papers related to its experimental measurement?

-Spence
 

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