A10430W1

SECOND PUBLIC EXAMINATION

Honour School of Physics Part A: 3 and 4 Year Courses

A2: ELECTROMAGNETISM AND OPTICS

TRINITY TERM 2018

Saturday, 16 June, 9.30 am – 12.30 pm

Answer all of Section A and three questions from Section B.

For Section A start the answer to each question on a fresh page.

For Section B start the answer to each question in a fresh book.

A list of physical constants and conversion factors accompanies this paper.

The numbers in the margin indicate the weight that the Examiners expect to
assign to each part of the question.

Do NOT turn over until told that you may do so.

1
 Section A

1. Find the capacitance of a coaxial capacitor of length L, where the inner conductor
has a radius a and the outer has radius b, and the material between the conductors has
a relative permittivity r . [4]
The coaxial capacitor is now attached to a battery and resistive load. Calculate
the instantaneous power flowing between the inner and outer conductors using the
Poynting vector, and compare it with the instantaneous power supplied by the battery.
[4]

2. A spherical conducting shell of radius a, centred at the origin, has a potential

(
V0 if r ≤ a;
V =
V0 a/r if r > a.

(i) Calculate the energy stored in the electrostatic field. [3]

(ii) Determine the total charge and use this to calculate the electrostatic energy. [2]

3. A plane electromagnetic wave is incident along the normal to the plane interface
between two dielectric non-magnetisable media with impedance Z1 and Z2 , respectively.
Determine the relative amplitudes of the electric field vectors of the incident, reflected
and transmitted waves, Ei , Er and Et . [4]

4. Unpolarised light of intensity I0 is incident upon two polarising filters, the first
with a vertical polarisation axis, and the second rotated 30◦ with respect to the first
filter. What is the intensity of the emerging beam, in terms of the incident unpolarised
intensity? [4]
If the second polarising filter is rotated until the transmitted intensity falls to 10%
of the incident intensity, what is the new angle between the transmission axes of the
two filters? [2]

5. State the conditions for Fraunhofer diffraction. Show how the Fraunhofer diffrac-
tion pattern is related to the Fourier transform of a vertical slit aperture of width b.
Hence, derive an equation for the intensity distribution for a narrow single slit in the
Fraunhofer limit. [5]

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 6. A transmission line of characteristic impedance Z0 , and length l, has impedance
Z1 when terminated by an open circuit, and Z2 when terminated by a closed circuit.
Show that Z1 Z2 = Z02 , independent of l. [4]
Determine the lengths of the transmission lines (in terms of the wavelength λ) that
are required, for both the open and closed circuits, in order for the input impedances
to be equal to a pure capacitance with magnitude C = (ωZ0 )−1 . [3]

7. For a bipolar transistor with a collector current Ic , operating at a temperature T ,

the variation of Ic with the base-emitter voltage Vbe , is given by

Ic = I0 exp (eVbe /kB T ) ,

where I0 is a constant, e is the unit charge and kB is Boltzmann’s constant. Show that
the transconductance gm = eIc /kB T . [1]
Consider the transistor circuit shown in the below.
+VCC

RC

Vout

Vin

Determine the small signal gain and the input resistance in terms of gm and the
current gain β. [4]

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 Section B

8. (a) N narrow slits are aligned along the vertical axis of an opaque sheet, separated
by a constant distance d, and are illuminated by a distant monochromatic coherent light
source of wavelength λ. Derive an equation for the angular resolution of this multi-slit
system. [4]
(b) Derive the one-dimensional intensity pattern of the fringes produced by the
N slits. Sketch and label the diffracted intensity I(θ) as a function of sin θ, for N = 3
and N = 7. [6]
(c) Qualitatively describe what happens to the fringe pattern as the slit plane is
rotated in such a way that the top half of the slit plane moves towards the distant light
source, and the bottom half rotates away from it. [2]
(d) A second monochromatic light source of wavelength λ + ∆λ is now added
to the original light source. Show that the resolving power of the multi-slit system is
independent of the distance between adjacent slits if N is unchanged. [3]
(e) Every second slit in the array is now covered with an opaque film, reducing
the number of slits by a factor of two. What happens to (i) the angular resolution for
the single light source, and (ii) the resolving power for the two light sources separated
by ∆λ? [2]
(f) What addition could be made to the multi-slit in order to show that light is
transverse in nature? Explain the reasons for your answer. [3]

9. (a) Find the velocity and displacement of a free electron in an electric field defined
by E = E0 eiωt . Hence show that the conductivity of a neutral plasma with a free electron
density ne , is given by σ = −ine e2 /me ω. [4]
(b) A plane wave of the form E(z, t) = E0 ei(ωt−kz) x̂,
moves through a conducting
medium. Show that the dispersion relation for the wave is given by
iσ
 
2 2
k = µr µ0 r 0 ω 1 − .
r 0 ω
[6]
(c) Using your answers above, show that the refractive index of a plasma can be
written
ωp2
!
2
n = µr r 1 − 2 ,
ω
and write down an expression for the plasma frequency ωp . Assuming r = µr = 1,
obtain an expression for the group velocity of waves in a plasma. [5]
(d) Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are bright flashes of coherent radiation, thought to
be emitted from stars in galaxies beyond our Milky Way. Assuming ω 2  ωp2 , derive an
expression for how the distance to an FRB is related to the difference in arrival time of
the wavefront measured at two frequencies, separated by ∆f . [3]
(e) The first FRB discovered, the Lorimer Burst, exhibited a time delay of 300 ms
between frequencies of 1.5 GHz and 1.2 GHz. Assuming that the intergalactic medium
has an average electron density of ne ∼ 10−6 cm−3 , calculate the distance to the FRB. [2]

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 10. A dielectric sphere of radius R, is embedded in a constant external electric field,
E = E0 ẑ. The sphere has a radially dependent variable permittivity given by

 = 0 (R/r)2 for r < R ,

with  = 0 outside the sphere.

(a) Show that the potential V satisfies the differential equation

d ln  ∂V
∇2 V + = 0.
dr ∂r
[5]
V (r, θ) can be expanded as a Legendre series,
∞
X
V (r, θ) = Vl (r)Pl (cos θ),
l=0

where l is a positive integer, and the first three Legendre polynomials are P0 (x) = 1,
P1 (x) = x and P2 (x) = 21 (3x2 −1). The general solution for this system can be described
by

Bl
Vl (r) = Al rl+1 + for r < R,
rl
Dl
Vl (r) = Cl rl + for r > R.
rl+1
(b) Using these general solutions, determine V (r, θ) inside and outside of the
sphere. [12]
(c) What is the net dipole moment of the polarised sphere? [3]

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 11. (a) Sketch the arrangement of optical components employed in a Michelson inter-
ferometer. Why is a compensating plate sometimes included? How can the interferom-
eter be used to measure accurate distances? [6]
(b) A Michelson interferometer can be used to detect the stretching of spacetime
due to gravitational waves. It uses a laser of wavelength λ = 1064 nm as its light source,
to detect the strain (related to the amplitude of gravitational wave), defined as the ratio
of the change in distance to that of the original distance, ∆L/L. Assuming that it is
possible to measure to 1/100th of a fringe separation, what arm length L would be
required to detect a gravitational wave that produces a strain of 10−21 ? Comment on
your answer. [3]
(c) Rather than counting fringes, it is possible to use the change in the intensity
of light to detect the gravitational wave signal. The laser generates a monochromatic
wave of the form Ein = E0 e−iωt , show that the intensity of the light at the detector of
a Michelson interferometer is given by

2π
 
2
I = I0 cos (L1 − L2 ) ,
λ
where I0 is the emitted intensity, and L1 and L2 are the lengths of the two arms of the
interferometer. You may assume that no light is lost due to the optical components. [6]
(d) A gravitational wave that produces a strain of 10−21 passes through a Michel-
son interferometer. What arm length would be required to detect a change in intensity
of ∆I = 10−19 I0 due to the passage of this gravitational wave? [3]
(e) A gravitational wave experiment can detect gravitational waves that produce a
strain of 10−21 . Discuss how you could improve on the simple Michelson interferometer
experiment in order to detect such a gravitational wave with arm lengths of 4 km. [2]

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