https://doi.org/10.1140/epjp/i2018-12097-7
Regular Article
The magnetic field circulation counterpart to Biot-Savart’s law
1
Departamento de Física, Escola de Ciências e Tecnologia, Universidade de Trás-os-Montes e Alto Douro, Quinta de Prados, 5001-801, Vila Real, Portugal
2
Laboratório de Instrumentação, Engenharia Biomédica e Física da Radiação (LIBPhys-UNL), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, 2829-516, Monte da Caparica, Portugal
3
IFIMUP-IN and Departamento de Física e Astronomia, Faculdade de Ciências, Universidade do Porto, R. do Campo Alegre s/n, 4169-007, Porto, Portugal
* e-mail: jferreir@utad.pt
Received:
3
May
2018
Accepted:
14
May
2018
Published online:
22
June
2018
The circulation, around an arbitrarily shaped loop, of the magnetic field generated by the flow of a volume distribution of current through a conducting medium is derived, in the zero retarded-time limit, using the Biot-Savart law. This circulation formula is validated for the particular case where the conducting medium is a finite length of arbitrarily shaped wire, and the distinction between the resulting expression and one obtained from the magnetic scalar potential is highlighted.
© Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature, 2018
