14.3.10. How many times will the potential difference and capacitance of a long cylindrical capacitor change when it moves at a speed $\beta c$ along the axis?
Solution
There are two ways to solve this problem; we will see both.
Because charge is a conserved quantity, we can say that $Q = C V \rightarrow C V = \text{constant}$ for all frames. Suppose that in the frame of the capacitor, the capacitor has a height $h$ and a surface area $S$; then the capacitance in the moving frame is:
\begin{equation} C = \frac{\varepsilon_0 S}{h} \end{equation}
In the Earth frame, the capacitor is moving with velocity $\beta c$ along its axis; then in the Earth frame the surface area of the capacitor will be the same, but the height will be:
\begin{equation} h' = h \sqrt{1-\beta^2} \end{equation}
Using the conserved quantity $Q$, we can obtain the voltage $V$:
\begin{equation} V'C' = V C \rightarrow V' = V \sqrt{1-\beta^2} \end{equation}
On the other hand, we can use the equation for the voltage of the capacitor $V = E h$. Using it, we see that because the distance between plates in the Earth frame will be $\sqrt{1-\beta^2}$ times smaller, and the field does not change between frames, the voltage in the Earth frame will be $\sqrt{1-\beta^2}$ times smaller.
Answer
\begin{equation} C' = \frac{C}{\sqrt{1-\beta^2}} \end{equation}
\begin{equation} V' = V \sqrt{1-\beta^2} \end{equation}