Displacement current

Displacement current is the contribution to magnetic fields associated with a changing electric field. Maxwell added it to Ampère’s law, making the law consistent with charge conservation and electromagnetic waves.

Ampère–Maxwell law: A Maxwell equation relating magnetic fields to conduction current and changing electric fields. Displacement current is the changing-field term that completes this law.
James Clerk Maxwell: A Scottish physicist whose theory unified electricity, magnetism, and light. Maxwell introduced displacement current into his electromagnetic theory.
Capacitor: An electrical component that stores energy in an electric field between conductors. A changing voltage produces displacement current across its insulating gap.
Conduction current: Electric current carried by the motion of charged particles through a material or space. Unlike conduction current, displacement current need not involve charge crossing a region.
Electric displacement field: A vector field that describes electric effects of free charge and polarization in matter. Its time variation supplies the displacement-current density in material form.
Ampère's circuital law: A law relating magnetic circulation around a closed path to the electric current it encloses. Its original form omitted changing electric fields, prompting Maxwell’s correction.
Vacuum capacitor: A capacitor whose electric field occupies a vacuum rather than a dielectric material. It shows displacement current without conduction through the gap’s material.
Magnetostatics: The study of magnetic fields produced by steady currents and stationary magnetic sources. Displacement current matters when fields vary, beyond the steady-current assumptions of magnetostatics.
Maxwell's equations: Four equations describing classical electromagnetic fields and their sources. Displacement current is essential to the equations’ consistent description of changing fields.
Maxwell's Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism: James Clerk Maxwell’s 1873 two-volume work presenting a mathematical theory of electromagnetism. Maxwell developed the displacement-current idea within this foundational exposition.

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