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An example of a solenoidal vector field, (,) = (,) In vector calculus a solenoidal vector field (also known as an incompressible vector field , a divergence-free vector field , or a transverse vector field ) is a vector field v with divergence zero at all points in the field: ∇ ⋅ v = 0. {\displaystyle \nabla \cdot \mathbf {v} =0.}
Path independence of the line integral is equivalent to the vector field under the line integral being conservative. A conservative vector field is also irrotational; in three dimensions, this means that it has vanishing curl. An irrotational vector field is necessarily conservative provided that the domain is simply connected.
A generalization of this theorem is the Helmholtz decomposition theorem, which states that any vector field can be decomposed as a sum of a solenoidal vector field and an irrotational vector field. By analogy with the Biot-Savart law , A ″ ( x ) {\displaystyle \mathbf {A''} (\mathbf {x} )} also qualifies as a vector potential for v ...
The Helmholtz decomposition in three dimensions was first described in 1849 [9] by George Gabriel Stokes for a theory of diffraction. Hermann von Helmholtz published his paper on some hydrodynamic basic equations in 1858, [10] [11] which was part of his research on the Helmholtz's theorems describing the motion of fluid in the vicinity of vortex lines. [11]
One way to define the curl of a vector field at a point is implicitly through its components along various axes passing through the point: if ^ is any unit vector, the component of the curl of F along the direction ^ may be defined to be the limiting value of a closed line integral in a plane perpendicular to ^ divided by the area enclosed, as ...
Thus the gas velocity has zero divergence everywhere. A field which has zero divergence everywhere is called solenoidal. If the gas is heated only at one point or small region, or a small tube is introduced which supplies a source of additional gas at one point, the gas there will expand, pushing fluid particles around it outward in all directions.
Since orthogonal transformations are actually rotations and reflections, the invariance conditions mean that vectors of a central field are always directed towards, or away from, 0; this is an alternate (and simpler) definition. A central field is always a gradient field, since defining it on one semiaxis and integrating gives an antigradient.
By its own definition, the vorticity vector is a solenoidal field since = In a two-dimensional flow , ω {\displaystyle {\boldsymbol {\omega }}} is always perpendicular to the plane of the flow, and can therefore be considered a scalar field .