Magnetic field lines for axisymmetric systems
BiotSavart (version 3.2 and higher) can calculate magnetic field lines in axially symmetric geometries. This makes use of the facts that field lines are confined to planes containing the z axis and that in any such plane the field lines follow the contours of the following expression:
To generate field lines, a planar probe is used to plot contours of the following expression in BiotSavart's macro language:
(x*Ay)-y*Ax
BiotSavart can also calculate field lines in general geometries using a Runge-Kutta method.
Magnetic field lines calculated using the vector potential approach (red) and the Runge-Kutta algorithm (green).
