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Qmechanic
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What is the Laplacian of $k\hat{r}$ where $r=\sqrt{x^2+y^2}$ and $k$ is a constant?

Using 3D cylindrical coordinates, I get 0 as the answer.

$$ \nabla^{2} (k \hat{r}) = \hat{r} (\frac{1}{r} \frac{\partial }{\partial r}\left(r \frac{\partial (k)}{\partial r}\right) + 0 + 0) + \hat{\phi} [\nabla^{2}(0)] + \hat{z} [\nabla^{2}(0)]= 0$$

Am I correct?

The solution to this question in the book that I'm using has ignored the unit vector and has given the Laplacian of $kr$ instead which is $k/r$.

Aftab
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