How To: Gauss Law Problems

William Baker
Department of PHYSICS 208: DONT PANIC, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas 77843-4242, USA
(Dated: June 9, 2015)
How to identify a Gauss Law Problem and how to solve them quickly and efficiently.

I.

WHAT THE *EXPLITIVE* IS GAUSS LAW?

Gauss Law claims that if you choose any imaginary surface and integrate (add up) the value of the electric field
multiplied by some infinitesimal area through which the electric field passes (electric flux) over the ENTIRE surface,
then you will actually get a number which corresponds to the total charge enclosed by this imaginary surface, divided
by a constant (0 ). In math:
I
~ dS
~ = Qenclosed
(1)
E
0
II.

HOW DO I KNOW IF ITS A GAUSS LAW PROBLEM?

Well, step one is to read the problem. They could be asking you any number of things. They might not (and
probably wont) be asking you about the Electric field or Charge enclosed specifically. If they do, then its easy, cause
they wont beat around the bush about it, the problem will simply state: Find the electric field (everywhere, inside,
outside, at a point , etc.) or Find the charge enclosed. On the other hand, they could be asking something related,
but not obvious. The other two most common things youll be asked to find are: Find the potential function/Find
the electric potential difference between and or Find the force on a charge due to this charge distribution. If
the problem mentions current, resistance, capacitance, resistivity, or anything else that sounds like circuits, then it
probably isnt a Gauss Law problem. There are a handful of situations where you might be asked to find the
capacitance of a certain geometry, and seeing as how capacitance depends on V and Q, it is certainly possible that
Gauss Law will be very, very useful.

III.

HOW TO PROCEED ONCE YOUVE FOUND A GAUSS LAW PROBLEM

Here are the general steps you should take when you attempt to solve a Gauss Law problem. Its possible that
some are irrelevant in certain situations, but you should follow them anyway, and exclude a step only if you find that
there is absolutely no way to employ it effectively. Dont worry if you dont understand the steps ab initio (from the
beginning). It will take a few problems of practice before you get it. So for now, pick a problem and walk through
these steps, one at a time, and read the entire thing as you go. Once you have worked a problem from beginning to
end, you might work through it again to try and understand what you did.

A.

Identify the symmetry

Every Gauss Law problem will be symmetric in some way, and there are only 3 real symmetries that you will
encounter: Spherical, Cylindrical, and Planar. Obviously, spheres are spherically symmetric, but so are point charges.
Obviously cylinders are cylindrically symmetric, but so are infinite line charges (finite line charges arent symmetric
enough for us). Obviously, an infinite sheet is symmetric, but so is a thick slab which is also infinite. Before you
start the problem, you need to identify the symmetry. It might even help if you write it somewhere. There are a few
variations on these geometries, but each of them should still have a semi-obvious symmetry. For spheres you could
have spherical shells, or spheres within spheres, or a point charge at the center of a sphere within a spherical shell.
Similarly for cylinders, but planes/slabs are pretty boring when it comes to variations, by which I mean I cant think
of any, but that doesnt mean they dont exist, so be wary. You MUST determine the symmetry before you
proceed, because the Gaussian surface you draw in a moment has to match this symmetry.

2
B.

Figure out how many regions you have

Youve figured out the symmetry, great. Now, figure out how many distinct regions there are. For a solid sphere,
you have: (1) inside and (2) outside the sphere. If you have a cylinder with an inner and outer radius, then you have
(1) inside the inner radius, (2) between the two radii, and (3) outside the outer radius. Mark these regions with a
large dot or something so that you wont forget.

C.

Determine the shape of your Gaussian surface(s)

Now for spheres and cylinders, the surface should be fairly obvious: for spheres, use spherical Gaussian surfaces,
for cylinders, use cylindrical Gaussian surfaces. For planes, it might be slightly less obvious, but you should make
your surface SOME prism. You can use a cylindrical surface, a cube, a rectangular prism, or a pillbox (think a can
of altoids). The point for infinite planes is that two of the faces MUST be parallel to the plane that they gave you,
and equidistant from the center of the plane (for thin sheets, just make sure the sheet cuts your Gaussian surface in
two, for slabs, make sure the center of the slab cuts your pillbox in two). Additionally, you should make sure that the
other side of your prism are perpendicular to the surface. Let me repeat: it doesnt matter what sort of prism you
choose, as long as the top and bottom are parallel to, and the sides are perpendicular to the plane they gave you. I
dont know how to draw pictures in LATEX, so if you need illustrations, come talk to me.
D.

Draw your Gaussian surface(s)

It is entirely possible that you will need multiple Gaussian surfaces (note the difference between plural and singular)
in order to solve your problem. Actually, screw possible, I guarantee youll need multiple surfaces - one for each region
you identified just a moment ago. So heres what you do: Draw the first one. Actually draw it. Dont do this in
your head. Draw it, and make sure you mark ALL of the dimensions of your surface, and make them arbitrary. By
arbitrary, I mean that you should distinguish between r and R (r is a variable, R is a constant), and you should
use variables for your dimensions. For spheres, you need to determine a radius only. For cylinders you need a radius
and a length/height. For prisms, you need an arbitrary area A for the top and bottom, and a height (call it 2h, trust
me). If youve got a sphere or cylinder, you need to center the surface on the center of the sphere or cylinder. If you
have a plane, the surface needs to be centered on the center of the surface, but of course, it doesnt matter where on
the plane you put it, because youll only ever have infinite surfaces. Once youve drawn the first one, draw the next
one, for the next region, and continue until youve got one for each region.

E.

Do the integral first, its easy

Now, the whole reason we can solve these problems is because theyre symmetric! What does this mean you say?
Why do you care? Because the symmetry means that the electric field is a constant on the entire surface, so you
can take it out of the integral. You need to be careful though, for planes and cylinders we need to make sure weve
written down an integral for each surface. Ill give you a hint though: For cylinders, the only integral you need is the
integral over the cylinder part of the surface, not the top or bottom, and for planes, the only two integrals you
need are the integrals over the top and bottom, not the sides. Why? BECAUSE OF THE SYMMETRY! The electric
field will only be perpendicular to the surface on the cylinder part or the top and bottom, and it will be parallel to
~ dS)
~ = 0 for those surfaces.
the other surfaces, meaning that the flux (E
So now you have some constant electric field (you probably dont know what it is, thats ok) so we should have this:

Z
Z
Qenclosed
E dS1 + dS2 =
(2)
0
1

Note that there isnt a circle on the integrals now, because now weve split up that closed integral into each of the
individual integrals. Now, what is the integral of dx? Great, so what is the integral of dS1 ? Its just the area over
Surface 1! You should be careful when you do this for planes, because the electric field points up on top of the surface,
and down on the bottom, meaning that the dot product in Gauss Law gives us a positive flux for both surfaces, not
a positive on top and negative on bottom. Of course, for cylinders and spheres, you wont have two integrals like

3
above, but just one, and you should end up in each case with:
ES =

Qenclosed
0

(3)

Qenclosed
0

(4)

except for the case of planes, where we should have:

E 2S =

This is because the area on top is equal to the area on bottom.

So now you had better have the surface areas for spheres and cylinders memorized. But just in case, here they are:
Ssphere = 4r2

(5)

Scylinder = 2r l

(6)

where l is the length of your cylindrical surface. Dont worry about these made up dimensions that we came up with
earlier like the length of the cylinder or the area of your prism, well see that they cancel out soon.

F.

Take a second and check your dimensions

On the left hand side, we should have dimensions of an electric field times an area. Its easy to lose track of things
and so its important to check your units as you go along. On the right hand side, you shouldnt have done anything
yet, so it should still look like charge divided by 0 .
G.

Calculate the charge enclosed

1.

Where is the charge?

Now for the right hand side. This part can be fairly tricky unless youve practiced alot. At this point, you should
only be considering one of your Gaussian surfaces (remember that you should probably have more than one). So
what do we mean by charge enclosed? Exactly that. How much charge does our Gaussian surface enclose? How
much charge is inside of our surface? This is why you needed to physically draw the surfaces earlier and not just do it
in your head. Look at your surface and identify where the charge is. Are there point charges? Line charges? Surface
charges? Volume charges? Whatever there is, they will have told you about it in the problem. Before proceeding,
make absolutely sure that youve identified all of the charges inside of your surface.

2.

Set up the integral

Now comes the tricky part, integrating. Yes, you need to do another integral. I dont care whether its obvious or
not, each time you calculate this, you must write down and calculate another integral. The only exception to this is
point charges. When you calculate the charge enclosed, you can write down the integral + Q if there happens to be
a point charge at the origin. Otherwise, write down an integral. What integral? One (or more) of these: (Ill explain
in a moment)
Z
Qenclosed = (r)dV
(7)

Z
Qenclosed =

dS

(8)

dl

(9)

Z
Qenclosed =

4
Each of these is a density times a volume, an area, or a length. is a volume charge density and has units of
charge per unit volume. is a surface charge density and has units of charge per unit area. is a linear charge
density and has units of charge per unit length. There are situations where you will need to use more than just
one of these. The important thing is to identify which of them to use for each independent region of charge inside
of your surface. If it isnt inside of your surface, dont worry about it, because it isnt enclosed. Now if you know
that the density is a constant (theyll call it uniform) then the integral is easy because we can pull constants out
of integrals, and well simply have to calculate the total volume, area, or length. The only one of these that might
present somewhat of a problem, mathematically speaking, is the volume charge integration. They could in principle,
give you a problem with a solid cylinder of charge or a slab of charge and its possible youll need to do a volume
integral in addition to a surface or a line integral. For each of the possible volumes you might have (spheres, cylinders,
slabs), the volume integral will look different.
For spheres, the integral is:
Z
Z
Qenclosed = (r)dV = (r) 4r2 dr
(10)
For cylinders:
Z
Qenclosed =

Z
(r)dV =

(r) 2lrdr

where l is the length of your Gaussian surface/cylinder. For slabs:

Z
Z
Qenclosed = (r)dV = (z) Adz

(11)

(12)

where A is the surface area of your Gaussian prism/pillbox.

You wont be given any situation where you wont be able to do the integral, so if you end up with something that
looks intractable, recheck your work. Remember to pull constants out of your integral. Youll know theyre constants
if they arent the same letter as whatever is attached to the d (whatever youre integrating with respect to.
3.

Determine the bounds

Youll need to determine the bounds of your integral, after all, we want to end up with a number or a function,
not an integral. So what are the bounds of your Gaussian surface? Where does the charge begin and where does it
end? Is the edge of your surface inside of the charge distribution or outside of it? Sometimes the charge exists at the
origin, in which case your lower bound will be 0, but sometimes it doesnt, so then your lower bound is wherever the
charge starts. Sometimes your Gaussian surface is inside of the charge distribution, in which case the upper bound
should be the coordinate of the edge of your surface (r, z), but other times your surface may be outside in free space,
in which case your upper bound had better be the edge of the charge distribution. Remember that were integrating
the charge, so thats what we should be focusing on when determining our bounds, however we only want to integrate
the charge within our surface, so we need to be mindful of where we drew our surface. Youll end up repeating this
for every different region you identified at the beginning of the problem, but for now, you need only consider the one
region that we decided to focus on. Here again we need to distinguish between r and R or z and H. It is possible to
integrate from a constant to a variable. In other words, my integral could be either:
Zr
Qenclosed =

(r) 4r2 dr

(13)

- or ZR
Qenclosed =

(r) 4r2 dr

(14)

where A is some constant (could be 0, could be R1 , could be whatever, but not a variable). So in one situation we
end up with a charge enclosed as function of the radius or height of our Gaussian surface (this should make sense
too: as the size of our surface increases/decreases, we enclose more/less charge if were inside of the distribution),
and in the other situation, we end up with a constant amount of charge enclosed (which again makes sense: as we
increase/decrease the size of our surface, the amount of charge doesnt change if were outside of the distribution)

5
4.

Do the integral

Do it. Do it now, and dont mix up integrals and derivatives, or you will fail miserably.

H.

Tie it all together

And what have you got? Youve found the electric field in some region! Now you need to go back and repeat
steps E, F and G for each region. Its entirely possible that this is only the first part of the problem they gave you.
Remember that they may be asking for a voltage or a force or a capacitance, but now you have the electric field, so
youre at least halfway done, so youve got that going for you. If you want examples, there are some in the book, and
there are more on the old tests. If you do all of those and youre craving harder examples, come to me and I will sate
your hunger.