Electric vector potential formulation in electrostatics: analytical treatment of the gaped surface electrode

Abstract

Electric vector potential $\Theta(\boldsymbol{r})$ is a legitimate but rarely used tool to calculate the steady electric field in free-charge regions. Commonly, it is preferred to employ the scalar electric potential $\Phi(\boldsymbol{r})$ rather than $\Theta(\boldsymbol{r})$ in most of the electrostatic problems. However, the electric vector potential formulation can be a viable representation to study certain systems. One of them is the surface electrode SE, a planar finite region $\mathcal{A}_{-}$ kept at a fixed electric potential with the rest grounded including a gap of thickness $\nu$ between electrodes. In this document we use the \textit{Helmholtz Decomposition Theorem} and the electric vector potential formulation to provide integral expressions for the surface charge density and the electric field of the SE of arbitrary contour $\partial\mathcal{A}$. We also present an alternative derivation of the result found in [M. Oliveira and J. A. Miranda 2001 Eur. J. Phys. 22 31] for the gapless ($\nu=0$) surface electrode GSE without invoking any analogy between the GSE and magnetostatics. It is shown that electric vector potential and the electric field of the gapped circular SE at any point can be obtained from an average of the gapless solution on the gap. Keywords: Electric vector potential, surface-electrode, Helmholtz Decomposition, Green's theorem.