Answer:
Capacitor Potential Energy Increase
u charge a parallel-plate capacitor, remove it from the battery, and prevent the wires connected to the plates from touching each other. When you increase the plate separation, the potential energy will...
As you increase the plate separation of a parallel-plate capacitor, the potential energy stored in the capacitor will increase.
The potential energy stored in a capacitor is given by the equation U = (1/2) CV^2, where U is the potential energy, C is the capacitance of the capacitor, and V is the voltage across the capacitor.
When you charge a capacitor and remove it from the battery, the voltage across the capacitor remains constant. Therefore, if you increase the plate separation of the capacitor, the capacitance of the capacitor decreases, according to the equation C = εA/d, where ε is the permittivity of the medium between the plates, A is the area of the plates, and d is the separation between the plates.
Since the voltage across the capacitor remains constant and the capacitance decreases, the potential energy stored in the capacitor must increase. This means that the electric field between the plates increases, and the work required to move a charge from one plate to the other also increases, resulting in an increase in potential energy.