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I understand geometrically why

$$\vec{A} = \dfrac{1}{2}\oint \vec{r} \times d\vec{s} \;\;\text{where A is the enclosed area}$$

is true: If you draw an arbitrary closed loop and draw the position vector with the line element you get parallelograms of which you can "flip" half of it out in order to add the next part and so on.

Picture of my explanation concerning the geometric understanding

But I do not know how to show this rigeriously and did not find much on the internet, especially because I do not know what to google for exactly. I know that we had something similar in my first year of university in electromagnetism, but we gave no proof for it to be true.

Disclaimer: This is no homework question. This is just me trying to understand some calculation from my condensed matter lecture.

Tera
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  • Welcome to Math.SE. For my humble opinion it is not correct called with the same name different things. Peraphs is better to write $\oint \bar r \times \overline{ds}$. I remember that the module of a vectorial product is the area of a parallelogram. – Sebastiano Jan 04 '20 at 12:49
  • I am pretty certain there is a version of Stokes' theorem that lets you translate between your integral and $\iint_A 1,dA$ (which is clearly the area of the region). But I can't seem to find just the right formulation. – Arthur Jan 04 '20 at 13:03
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    @Sebastiano I edited my post for you. Also, yes that is what I know too, I also calculated it for a plane circle and got the expected result. I just would like to have a general "proof" of this being true, but I do not know how to proceed. I tried writing $\vec{r}$ in terms of a parameter t but ended up with $\oint \vec{r} \times \dot{\vec{r}}dt$. – Tera Jan 04 '20 at 13:10
  • @Tera Thank you very much. But have you considered the center angle $\theta$ during the displacement $\overline{ds}$? – Sebastiano Jan 04 '20 at 13:16
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    @Sebastiano No, and I do not know what you are going for. Could you be so kind and elaborate what you exactly mean? – Tera Jan 04 '20 at 13:20
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    The equality of your expression to the surface area is shown in https://math.stackexchange.com/a/1800396/143136. – ACuriousMind Jan 04 '20 at 13:34
  • @ACuriousMind Thanks! That was helpful. – Tera Jan 04 '20 at 17:17

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This can be proven using index notation (and the Einstein summation convention) pretty easily. Note that in this answer, I put all indices downstairs, and whenever any two are repeated, we sum over them. \begin{align} \left(\int_{\partial S} \vec{r} \times d \vec{s} \right)_i &= \int_{\partial S} \epsilon_{ijk} r_j\, ds_k \end{align} Where $\epsilon_{ijk}$ is the Levi-Civita symbol (defined such that $\epsilon_{123} = 1$ and such that it is totally alternating in the indices) Note that the RHS of this expression is can be written as $\vec{F} \cdot d \vec{s}$ if you define $F_k = \epsilon_{ijk} r_j$. So, \begin{align} \left(\int_{\partial S} \vec{r} \times d \vec{s} \right)_i &= \int_{\partial S} \vec{F} \cdot d \vec{s} \\ &= \int_S (\nabla \times F) \cdot d\vec{a} \tag{Stokes Theorem} \end{align}

Now, you can continue carrying out this computation by diligently writing out what the curl of $\vec{F}$ is, taking the dot product with $d\vec{a} = \hat{n} \, da$ ($\hat{n}$ being the unit outward normal vector field to the oriented surface $S$). Or, you can continue with the index manipulations as I show here: \begin{align} \int_S (\nabla \times F) \cdot d \vec{a} &= \int_S (\nabla \times F)_{\mu} \, da_{\mu} \\ &= \int_S \epsilon_{\mu \nu k} (\partial_{\nu} F_k) \, da_{\mu} \\ &= \int_S \epsilon_{\mu \nu k} \left(\partial_{\nu} (\epsilon_{ijk} r_j ) \right) \, da_{\mu} \\ &= \int_S \epsilon_{\mu \nu k} \epsilon_{ijk} (\partial_{\nu} r_j) \, da_{\mu} \\ &= \int_S \epsilon_{\mu \nu k} \epsilon_{ijk} \delta_{\nu j} \, da_{\mu} \\ &= \int_S \epsilon_{\mu j k} \epsilon_{ijk} \, da_{\mu} \\ &= \int_S (\delta_{\mu i} \delta_{jj} - \delta_{\mu j} \delta_{j i}) \, da_{\mu} \tag{$*$} \end{align} Now, unfortunately $(*)$ is just one of those identities which is completely non obvious, and you just have to perform a massive direct computation to verify it (there are several proofs of this fact online). Note that $\delta_{jj} = \sum_{j=1}^3 \delta_{jj} = \sum_{j=1}^3 1 = 3$ is the dimension of the space we are working in (i.e the trace of the $3 \times 3$ identity matrix) So, continuing, we have \begin{align} \int_S (\delta_{\mu i} \delta_{jj} - \delta_{\mu j} \delta_{j i}) \, da_{\mu} &= \int_S \left( \delta_{\mu i} \cdot 3 - \delta_{\mu i}\right) \, da_{\mu} \\ &= \int_{S} 2 \delta_{\mu i} \, da_{\mu} \\ &= 2 \int_S da_{i} \\ &= (2 \vec{A})_i \end{align} In other words we showed that for all $i \in \{1,2,3\}$, \begin{align} \left(\int_{\partial S} \vec{r} \times d \vec{s} \right)_i &= \left(2 \int _S d \vec{a}\right)_i \equiv (2 \vec{A})_i \end{align} Since all the components of the two vectors (with respect to the standard basis of $\Bbb{R}^3$) are equal, the vectors themselves agree. This proves your formula.


By the way, there might be some variant of Stokes theorem written in vector notation which may be of direct use in this case, but honestly, I can never remember them so I rather just quickly re-derive things myself. I suggest you do not spend too much time trying to remember all the variants either, because they all require you to think of a "clever" function to apply the standard Stokes formula to.

As much as I hate working with indices and the Einstein summation convention, I think this really is a pretty quick computation once you're familiar with the notation.

peek-a-boo
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  • Thank you for all the effort! This is a real beautiful derivation I could follow well. I just do not like your definition of F as it seems to come out of nowhere. – Tera Jan 04 '20 at 17:17
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    @Tera I'd say the definition of $F$ is very natural and is pretty much forced upon us. We're trying to prove an equality between vectors, so my first step is to reduce this problem to showwing all their components are equal. Then, $\left(\int_{\partial S} \vec{r} \times d \vec{s} \right)i = \int{\partial S} \epsilon_{ijk} r_j, ds_k$ What I'm saying now is that I want to somehow use Stoke's theorem (the usual one which can be found anywhere, say Wikipedia). So, I need to express that line integral in the form $\int_{\partial S} \vec{F} \cdot d \vec{s}$ for some vector field $\vec{F}$. – peek-a-boo Jan 04 '20 at 17:20
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    But note that $\int_{\partial S} \vec{F} \cdot d \vec{s} = \int_{\partial S} F_k , ds_k$. So, by comparing the two terms, we can define $F_k = \epsilon_{ijk} r_j$ (we could also add to $\vec{F}$ the gradient of a scalar function, because that wouldn't affect the closed loop integral... but why bother, we already have a perfectly valid choice, so might as well use it). – peek-a-boo Jan 04 '20 at 17:22
  • Ah, I see. That makes sense. Thanks for clearing that up! – Tera Jan 04 '20 at 17:26
  • Hey, I am helping to update the script of my condensed matter lecture and would like to include this derivation. Is that ok with you, should I credit you or something? – Tera Mar 05 '20 at 13:30
  • @Tera sure, you can include it. I don't think it is necessary to credit me (this is not too groundbreaking of a result imo) – peek-a-boo Mar 05 '20 at 14:03