Electrostatics – Will Charges Rearrange Inside a Conductor or Not?

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I'm confused about how conductors work.

So, imagine we have a spherical conductor, charged with a certain potential, $V$, that must remain constant.
Now, this sphere has a cavity inside, where we put a certain charge $q_1$.
I guess, since the electric field must be $0$ inside the conductor, charges will rearrange in such a way that they cancel the field produced by the cavity ($q_1$), is this correct?
If it is, then, imagine we put another charge, $q_2$, outside the sphere. Will charges rearange to cancel the field produced by this charge? Will the total charge, $Q$ remain constant? Would there be a (non-zero) charge density $\rho$ inside the conductor?

So confusing!

Best Answer

Yes, the charges rearrange to that the total field inside the conductor is zero---that is, the sum of the fields due to $q_1$ and $q_2$ will vanish. No, the total amount of charge inside the conductor does not change, but it might happen that there's more positive charge here, more negative charge there, and so on, but always in a way that keeps the total amount of charge constant.