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The source of displacement current is ______.

Asked in GUJCET 2020 · Displacement current equals conduction current

Answer: (2) Changing Electric Field

Step-by-step solution

Idea: Ampere's law applied to a charging capacitor gives two different answers for two surfaces bounded by the same loop, because no charge crosses the gap between the plates.

Maxwell removed the contradiction by adding a term built from the changing electric flux in the gap: i_d = ε₀(dΦ_E)/(dt).

So wherever the electric field, and with it the electric flux, changes with time, there is a displacement current -- even in vacuum, with no charge moving at all.

The source of displacement current is therefore a changing electric field.

Why the other options are wrong

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