sources and sinks of vector field
Let the vector field
of
be interpreted, as in the remark of the parent entry, as the velocity
field of a stationary flow of a liquid. Then the flux
of
through a closed surface
expresses how much more liquid per time-unit it comes from inside of
to outside than contrarily. Since for a usual incompressible liquid, the outwards flow and the inwards flow are equal, we must think in the case that the flux differs from 0 either that the flowing liquid is suitably compressible or that there are inside the surface some sources creating liquid and sinks annihilating liquid. Ordinarily, one uses the latter idea. Both the sources and the sinks may be called sources, when the sinks are negative sources. The flux of the vector
through
is called the productivity or the strength of the sources inside
.
For example, the sources and sinks of an Electric Field
(
) are the locations containing positive and negative charges, respectively. The Gravitational Field
has only sinks, which are the locations containing mass.
The expression
where
means a region in the vector field and also its volume, is the productivity of the sources in
per a volume-unit. When we let
to shrink towards a point
in it, to an infinitesimal volume-element
, we get the limiting value
 |
(1) |
called the source density in
. Thus the productivity of the source in
is
. If
, there is in
neither a source, nor a sink.
The Gauss's theorem
applied to
says that
 |
(2) |
Accordingly,
 |
(3) |
and
 |
(4) |
This last formula can be read that the flux of the vector through a closed surface equals to the total productivity of the sources inside the surface. For example, if
is the electric flux density
, (4) means that the electric flux through a closed surface equals to the total charge inside.
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As of this snapshot date, this entry was owned by pahio.