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garyp
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Electric Potential of a sphere given electric field

I'm studying for a course in electromagnetism, and I've been given an electric field for which I need to find the associated scalar potential. The field is the field generated by a sphere of radius $R$ with constant charge density $\rho$ throughout its volume, so that the total charge $Q=\dfrac{4\pi r^3 \rho}{3}$contained in the sphere is constant.

The electric field is given by $\vec{E}_{\text{in}}(\vec{r})=\dfrac{Q}{4\pi \epsilon_0 R^3}r$ and $\vec{E}_{\text{out}}(\vec{r})=\dfrac{Q}{4\pi \epsilon_0 r^2}$, where the former is valid for $r\leq R$ and the latter for $r\geq R$. This I've calculated before and I do not have trouble with. The scalar potential $\phi(\vec{r})$ is defined by $\vec{E}=-\vec{\nabla}\phi$. The provided solutions to the problem are hand written but I'll type them here using the exact same notation:

$\phi_{\text{in}}=-\int \vec{E}_{\text{in}}d\vec{r}=-\dfrac{Qr^2}{8\pi \epsilon_0 R^3} + C_1$

$\phi_{\text{out}}=-\int \vec{E}_{\text{out}}d\vec{r}=\dfrac{Q}{4\pi \epsilon_0 r} +C_2$

This is literally all the information I've been given. I really don't know what these integrals are, nor how they follow from the above equation. I can see that the result of the first integral for example is just the indefinite integral $-\int \dfrac{Q}{4\pi \epsilon_0 R^3}r dr$ but I can't see how this stage was reached. I think my professor intended this to be a $\cdot$ in the integrals but has missed them out. Even so I can't figure out where these integrals come from (i.e. why they give the potential), what these integrals mean, or (if they are indeed surface integrals) how to evaluate them.

Any clarification would be much appreciated!

Lammey
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