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ExamsJEE AdvancedPhysics

A cubical closed (Gaussian) surface has each side of length L. A point charge q is placed at one of the vertices (corners) of the cube. Find the electric flux passing through one of the three faces of the cube that do NOT touch that vertex (a face away from the charge), expressed as a fraction of q/epsilon0.

  1. q/(24*epsilon0)
  2. q/(8*epsilon0)
  3. q/(6*epsilon0)
  4. zero

Correct answer: q/(24*epsilon0)

Solution

A charge at a corner is symmetrically shared by 8 identical cubes, so flux through one whole cube is (1/8)(q/epsilon0). Within that cube, the three faces that meet at the corner where q sits are parallel to the field lines emanating from q (field lines graze them), so they carry zero flux. The remaining three faces equally share the cube's flux. Therefore flux through one of those (far) faces = (1/3)(1/8)(q/epsilon0) = q/(24*epsilon0).

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