[Physics] Why is Kirchhoff’s voltage law true in a DC circuit

electric-circuitselectrical-resistanceelectrostatics

If we consider a single electron going around a closed loop, with a battery giving an EMF of $6\ \mathrm V$, why does the electron have to lose the energy in the loop?

If the circuit had zero resistance, wouldn't the electron just gain more and more energy as it loops around the circuit again and again, thus breaking Kirchhoff's voltage law and failing to conserve of energy, since the chemical potential of the battery gives the energy?

Best Answer

I mean the basic principle is, you're right, this setup is described by the math of classical electrical circuits as one which should drive an infinite current, and if you only have one charge to move then an infinite current necessitates it moving with infinite speed. If you do not give it a way to lose energy then it will continue to gain energy indefinitely.

Kirchhoff's voltage law can still be applied to such a condition but it is somewhat less informative. The voltage law comes from the fact that there is a scalar potential field $\varphi$ defined over space, it is just one field, it has only one value and no other. It is something like wondering why I cannot gain infinite energy by sledding down a hill: well, whatever speed you are getting on the way down, I can prove that you’re in for an equal-and-opposite trek up. So if this field is well-defined then Kirchhoff’s voltage law holds good.

This field $\varphi$ in turn comes from the Maxwell equations, which in my favorite units look like,$$ \begin{align} \nabla \cdot E &= c\rho & \nabla\times E &= -\dot B\\ \nabla \cdot B &= 0 & \nabla \times B &= J + \dot E \end{align} $$ where $\dot X = \partial X/\partial w = c^{-1} \partial X/\partial t.$

First, the bottom-left one is used to rewrite $B = \nabla \times A$ for some “vector potential” $A$ and then the top-right one says $$\nabla \times (E + \dot A) = 0$$ implying that there exists a scalar potential function $\varphi$ such that $$E + \dot A = -\nabla \varphi.$$ So this is a mathematical theorem, this scalar function $\varphi$ always exists. You can really say that there is a voltage drop of 6 volts from one side of the terminal to the other, and that is fine. Kirchhoff’s voltage law holds everywhere.

But notice what is not said: the connection to a particle’s kinetic energy depends on work which depends on this electric field $E$ and its behavior over closed loops. And $\nabla\varphi$ vanishes over closed loops, but there is no reason that $\dot A$ must, and so a particle can gain/lose energy in a closed loop, if the vector potential is increasing/decreasing in time.

So, normally we can just step back from a circuit and assume that whatever the vector potential $A$ is, the circuit comes to some equilibrium value where it is not changing and $\dot A = 0$. Then $E = -\nabla \phi$ and we know that the thing must have lost all of its energy by the time that it comes back around the loop. That is how we know that the electron has lost its energy.

But, in the case that you are describing, we know that the Liénard–Wiechert potentials $\phi, A$ for a moving charge contain an $A$ which runs parallel to the charge, in rough proportion to its speed. As the charge is going faster and faster, this $A$ is increasing and increasing around the loop, and this factor of $\dot A$ is non-negligible.

Kirchhoff’s rule is not technically wrong, what is wrong is the assumption that energy only changes from a change in potential, that these go hand-in-hand. The Maxwell equations do not say this, they say instead that there is this other thing, this vector-potential $A$, which must change in that scenario.

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