[Physics] Solution of simple problems using only Maxwell equations in differential form

electromagnetismmagnetostaticsmaxwell-equations

Solve simple electrostatic or magnetostatic problems using only Maxwell equations. For example:

In every book there is an excercise to find a magnetic field outside a thin wire of radius $a$ with current $I$. The usual approach is Biot-Savart law or Ampere law. I know you can derive Biot-Savart law from Maxwell equations or use integral form of Ampere law to solve this easily, but I'm interested in solution involving vector potential $A$ and a Poisson equation. Then solving the equation by separation of variables. What would be the boundary conditions?

EDIT:

Consider it like this: You know noting but these two magnetostatic equations:

$\nabla\cdot \textbf{B} = 0$ and $\nabla \times \textbf{H} = \textbf{J} $

and you now about Coulomb gauge $\nabla \cdot \textbf{A} =0$ and $\textbf{B}=\nabla \times \textbf{A}$ and that $\textbf{H}$ and $\textbf{B}$ are simply related by $\textbf{B}= \mu \textbf{H}$

What differential equation does this produce and what boundary conditions would you use for this specific problem?

Best Answer

This isn't really a "boundary conditon" problem in the sense that we aren't trying to take knowledge of $\vec{A}$ on some surface and extend it to a solution of Laplaces equation in some region, which has the surface as a boundary. The reason you can't do this is that you have no apriori reason to know how $\vec{A}$ should look for a given $\vec{J}$.

Rather you're trying to turn information about the sources, $\vec{J}$, into information about the field, $\vec{A}$. This requires actually inverting the $\nabla^2$ operator, which involves the use of Green's functions. For instance you could use the formula,

$$ A_x(\vec{x}) = \frac{\mu}{4\pi} \int \frac{J_x(\vec{x}') d^3\vec{x}'}{\left| \vec{x}-\vec{x}' \right|} .$$