Work (electrical)

Work (electrical)

Electrical work is the work done on a charged particle by an electric field. The equation for 'electrical' work is, naturally, equivalent to that of 'mechanical' work:

where

Q is the charge of the particle, q, the unit charge

E is the electric field, which at a location is the force at that location divided by a unit ('test') charge

F_E is the Coulomb (electric) force

r is the displacement

is the dot product