Flux

Various physical quantities as a flow which would arise as the product of a field and a surface. The usual symbols for these quantities is ( great phi).

Possible flow variables

It is a scalar field, a vector field and the area of interest ( the surface area multiplied by the unit normal vector of the surface ). Then three flow sizes can be made:

Scalar flux of a vector field:

Vector flux of a scalar field:

Vector flux of a vector field:

Scalar flux of a vector field

Practically important is mainly the scalar flux of a vector field, the inner / scalar product of the vector field and area. This river too, although he is a scalar quantity, sometimes called in the literature vector flow. Is that - also referred to as flux density - vector field over the surface constant, the integral is simply in the scalar product:

Major flows of scalar vector fields are, for example, the magnetic flux and the electric flow.

Magnetic flux surfaces play a role in plasma physics of fusion reactors (see rotational transform ). A river surface is characterized in that the flow is through each of its surface elements zero. The vectors are therefore parallel to it. Often nested flux surfaces are considered, by the largest flux density envelop starting an ever larger part of the river.