Physics, asked by Ryan, 1 year ago

Give a brief introduction on Poisson’s and Laplace’s Equations.

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Answered by kvnmurty
1
In the subjects of gravitation, mechanical engineering, physics, electrostatics the two equations are used.

Poisson's equation is a generalization of the Laplace equation.

Poisson's equation describes the gradient of potential field V (electrostatic or gravitational) in terms of volume mass (or charge) density ρ.  The Delta operator means the 2nd degree partial derivative in x, y, and z directions.

In general the volume charge density in space is in real situations is not known exactly. Only the boundary values on a closed boundaries (surface) are known.  So this PDE (partial differential equation) along with boundary values is used to derive an expression for potential V at all points inside a closed surface.

When the function on the RHS = f = 0 or volume charge density = 0, then the equation becomes Laplace's equation.

This equation is also used in Heat transfer problems to determine temperature in a medium at all points when heat transfers take place from one end to another.

For a linear medium (linear density distribution) these equations can be derived from Gauss's law.  Using the potential the field intensity or strength is also determined.

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