The force acting on a stationary electric charge qA interacting with a charge qB is descri...

The force acting on a stationary electric charge qA interacting with a charge qB is described by Coulomb’s law and takes the form

where k = 8.9875 × 109 N · m2/C2 (C is the symbol for coulomb, the unit used to measure electric charge) is a constant and r is the distance between A and B. This force law is mathematically very similar to Newton’s universal gravitation law. With this in mind, determine an expression of the electrostatic potential energy, choosing the datum at infinity, i.e., such that the potential energy is equal to zero when the two charges are separated by an infinite distance.

Figure P4.35