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The question title sums it up pretty well, but to elaborate, is Kirchhoff's Law valid for situations where the emf is due to non-conservative electric field, like one produced due to a varying magnetic field (with the circuit stationary)?

This question was born out of another question here.

Thank you!

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    $\begingroup$ Kirchhoff's laws are derived with the assumption of static electric and magnetic fields, by applying the Stokes theorem to the Faraday's law and divergence theorem to the continuity equation. Therefore they are not accurate for non-conservative electric fields. But they are used in low frequency electric circuits within the applicability of the lumped circuit model, with some approximation. $\endgroup$
    – Mostafa
    Commented May 16, 2016 at 15:39
  • $\begingroup$ It's not a question of conservative fields. It's a question of no energy exciting electromagnetic vacuum modes for which lumped descriptions don't work. $\endgroup$
    – CuriousOne
    Commented May 16, 2016 at 17:06
  • $\begingroup$ @CuriousOne I don't think so, especially since the OP points to a varying magnetic field, which is what you need to make the electric field non-conservative. Also, I don't understand what does radiation have to do with this problem. An antenna can be modeled by an impedance. Free space (or any other waveguide) can be modeled with a transmission line. $\endgroup$
    – Mostafa
    Commented May 16, 2016 at 18:49
  • $\begingroup$ @Mostafa: A time varying magnetic field is not a problem for a lumped circuit description as long as it doesn't have internal degrees of freedom but can be characterized by a single energy term ($LI^2$). You can look at circuit simulators like Spice, they are handling it just fine. You can even couple a circuit simulator to a full finite element Maxwell code, if you like, but then it's not Kirchhoff's laws at work, anymore, which is what the question was about. $\endgroup$
    – CuriousOne
    Commented May 16, 2016 at 18:52

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The Short answer is no. Kirchhoff's Law is derived by the assumption that the electric field is conservative, while the electric field induced by the change of an magnetic field is not conservative.

The Long answer is, that you have to clarify what voltages you are looking on. Kirchhoffs Law is usualy used to make a statement about the voltage drops in a closed path inside an electrical circuit, like \begin{align} U_1 + U_2 + U_3 = 0 \end{align}

Here, by $U_1$, the user usualy doesn't mean a line-integral of the electrical field, but instead the terminal voltage. The terminal voltage is the the line-integral of the conservative part of the electric field, or the voltage as it would be if you would remove the non-conservative part of the electric field. It is also the voltage that you can measure when you plug a multimeter to the two points that belong to $U_1$.

Using it like that, you can use Kirchhoff's Law even in cases that feature time dependend magnetic fields:

The next section makes the approximation of slowly varying current and fields inside the circuit. Because of that, I neglect radiation that is induced in the capacitor and the inductor by changing fields. I also assume that the time the charge distribution inside the circuit needs to cancel out an external electric field is small compared to the change of the electric field and the currents.

Kirchhoff's Law is commonly used to describe for example an LC-circuit. Here we usualy just state that enter image description here \begin{align} U_L + U_C = 0 \end{align} and we do that altough we know that the electric field inside the inductor isn't conservative. Why are we allowed to do that?

Coming from Maxwell's Law: \begin{align} \int_{Path} \vec{E}d\vec{x} = \int_{Surface} - \frac{\partial B}{\partial t} \end{align}

In the capacitor there is a conservative electrical field (generated by charges), in the inductor there is no field at all, because the non-conservative field generated by the changing magnetic field is directly cancelled out inside a conductor (conductors are field free). That means, the lhs of the equation is just $U_C$, the terminal voltage in the capacitor. The rhs of the equation instead is the negative terminal voltage in an inductor: \begin{align} -U_L = \int_{Surface} - \frac{\partial B}{\partial t} \end{align}

And then you arrive at enter image description here \begin{align} U_L + U_C = 0 \end{align}

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for your answer! I'm totally unfamiliar with Maxwell's laws (yet to be taught to us), so a doubt: isn't the "field inside the conductor is zero" valid for only the electro_static_ case? Or is it some consequence of Maxwell's Laws? And which field cancels the non-conservative one in the conductor? $\endgroup$ Commented May 16, 2016 at 16:29
  • $\begingroup$ It is simply not true that capacitors only have conservative fields. A short look at the displacement currents in Maxwell's equations will demonstrate the opposite. A circuit is conservative as long as it doesn't radiate electromagnetic waves, i.e. we can use these laws successfully of we know that no energy is lost into vacuum modes (all potentials and magnetic fields are restricted to the immediate volume around the circuit), but even in the near field case lumped elements lack the necessary degrees of freedom to describe the fields correctly. $\endgroup$
    – CuriousOne
    Commented May 16, 2016 at 16:48
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    $\begingroup$ If a field inside a conductor exists, then the charges (which can easily move inside a conductor) will move in a way that will cancel the field out. This property is valid for the electrostatic case, but you can also use it if the induced electric field in the inductor changes slowly, compared to the time the charges need to move. In principal, the electrons need a finite time to do so, so it's just an approximation to say that there is no field inside the inductor. $\endgroup$ Commented May 16, 2016 at 16:51
  • $\begingroup$ @CuriousOne: Yes, you are right, I just tried to give reason why electrotechnicians still use the laws of kirchhoff, also in cases where there is radiation (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LC_circuit And they do it). What I wrote must be prefaced by the notion, that the fields and the currents change slowly. I neglect losses by radiation in both inductor and capacitor because of that. $\endgroup$ Commented May 16, 2016 at 16:55
  • $\begingroup$ I do not understand, you say that induced electric field changes slowly, but on the other hand you say the electrons move in a finite time period...the second statement would mean that it would not be an electrostatic case even approximately, and i believe that...could you tell me why the first statement also holds? $\endgroup$ Commented May 16, 2016 at 17:02
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Kirchoff's laws are the electric equivalents of more fundamental laws.

  • Kirchoff's Law of Current: Is a formulation of the Charge Conservation Law, in a node there is no net charge, so from the continuity equation the net current going through the node is 0.

  • Kirchoff's Law of voltage: Corresponds to the energy conservation, altough you need current's law to see it. In a closed loop the net power delivered and consumed has to be 0 (Conservation of energy), since power is $P = V\cdot I$, since the current is governed by the current's law, with a little algebraic manipulation you get that the sum of voltages is 0.

Please notice that so far there is no dependence at all on the nature of the source, loads, voltage, currents of the circuit. All it need is that the circuit can be modeled as a circuit (lump model)See Wikipedia's page on Kirchoff's Laws for the discussion on the limitations of the laws.

In the particular case you are asking, you don't have a circuit model, thus you cannot apply the kirchoff's laws.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for your answer! Suppose we consider a circular loop in a varying magnetic field, that has some resistance. By using Faraday's Law, we find the emf. Then is it correct procedure to divide the emf by resistance to get the current in it? $\endgroup$ Commented May 17, 2016 at 5:38
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    $\begingroup$ Yes. and this mechanism is widely used in real devices (Transformers) In a simple configuration the second coil as your circular loop in a varying magnetic field with a resistence attached to it and The first coils is used only to induce the the magnetic field. $\endgroup$
    – Joafigue
    Commented May 17, 2016 at 6:54
  • $\begingroup$ Well then, could you also provide an answer to the linked question? I feel from what you said, that you could answer it... $\endgroup$ Commented May 17, 2016 at 7:14

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