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Electric charge is a conserved property: the net charge of an isolated system, the quantity of positive charge minus the amount of negative charge, cannot change. Electric charge is carried by subatomic particles. In ordinary matter, negative charge is carried by electrons, and positive charge is carried by the protons in the nuclei of atoms ...
This charge is sometimes called the Noether charge. Thus, for example, the electric charge is the generator of the U(1) symmetry of electromagnetism. The conserved current is the electric current. In the case of local, dynamical symmetries, associated with every charge is a gauge field; when quantized, the gauge field becomes a gauge boson. The ...
The electric field was formally defined as the force exerted per unit charge, but the concept of potential allows for a more useful and equivalent definition: the electric field is the local gradient of the electric potential. Usually expressed in volts per metre, the vector direction of the field is the line of greatest slope of potential, and ...
Charge quantization is the principle that the charge of any object is an integer multiple of the elementary charge. Thus, an object's charge can be exactly 0 e, or exactly 1 e, −1 e, 2 e, etc., but not 1 / 2 e, or −3.8 e, etc. (There may be exceptions to this statement, depending on how "object" is defined; see below.)
An electric current is a flow of charged particles, such as electrons or ions, moving through an electrical conductor or space. It is defined as the net rate of flow of electric charge through a surface.
In physics, a charged particle is a particle with an electric charge. For example, some elementary particles, like the electron or quarks are charged. [1] Some composite particles like protons are charged particles. An ion, such as a molecule or atom with a surplus or deficit of electrons relative to protons are also charged particles.
In short, an electric potential is the electric potential energy per unit charge. This value can be calculated in either a static (time-invariant) or a dynamic (time-varying) electric field at a specific time with the unit joules per coulomb (J⋅C −1) or volt (V). The electric potential at infinity is assumed to be zero.
The coulomb (symbol: C) is the unit of electric charge in the International System of Units (SI). [1] [2] It is defined to be equal to the electric charge delivered by a 1 ampere current in 1 second. It is used to define the elementary charge e. [2] [1]