How do you find an electron's acceleration in an electric field?

Question

For example:

In x-ray machines, electrons are subjected to electric fields as great as 6.0 x 10^5 N/C. How would you find an electron's acceleration in this field, given the mass of the electron and e?

Answer 1

The electron carries a negative electric charge of –1.602 x 10^-19 coulomb and has a mass of 9.109 x 10^-31 kg.

Therefore the a = F/m; where a is the acceleration, m the mass, and F is the force from the Xray. You claim the Xray has a 6 X 10^5 Newton per coulomb flux (f); so F = fe = force in Newtons on an electron with charge e; where f is the flux density and e the charge of an electron.

Thus, a = F/m = fe/m = (6X10^5)(1.6X10-19)/(9.1X10^-31) = acceleration of an electron inside the Xray. (m/sec) You can do the math.

Answer 2

acceleration = force/mass =q*E/m.
acceleration = q * 6.0 x 10^5 / m