English

Electrostatics and Riemann Surfaces

General Physics 2020-09-21 v2

Abstract

Using techniques from geometry and complex analysis in their simplest form, we present a derivation of electric fields on surfaces with non-trivial topology. A byproduct of this analysis is an intuitive visualization of elliptic functions when their argument is complex-valued. The underlying connections between these techniques and the theory of Riemann surfaces are also explained. Our goal is to provide students and instructors a quick reference article for an extraordinary topic that is not included in the standard books.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2006.07149,
  title  = {Electrostatics and Riemann Surfaces},
  author = {Spencer Tamagni and Costas Efthimiou},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2006.07149},
  year   = {2020}
}

Comments

Slightly expanded version: three subsections added. Accepted for publication in the Eur. J. Phys

R2 v1 2026-06-23T16:16:30.269Z