Trajectories of electric charges passing through an ideal solenoid and a thin conducting pipe arranged coaxially

Abstract

Abstract We discuss the effect of fields produced by a coaxially arranged ideal solenoid and thin conducting pipe on electric charge trajectories. The electric charges released from positions outside the solenoid/pipe are trapped by electric and magnetic fields. The combination of forces generated by the two types of field results in ‘spider web-like’ trajectories. We also discuss the concepts of the mass spectrometer and the isotope discriminator, although we do not go into detail about how to generate ions and detect them. This topic may be of interest to undergraduate students since it only uses basic physics and mathematics skills and sounds innovative.