The rate of change of electric displacement is called the **"displacement current."**
To break it down a bit:
1. **Electric Displacement (D)**: This is a vector field used in electromagnetism to describe the effect of free and bound charges in a medium. It's related to the electric field (\(E\)) and the polarization (\(P\)) of the material by the relation \( \mathbf{D} = \epsilon_0 \mathbf{E} + \mathbf{P} \), where \(\epsilon_0\) is the permittivity of free space.
2. **Displacement Current (J_d)**: In Maxwell's equations, the displacement current density is introduced to account for the changing electric field in situations where there is no actual current flow. It's given by \( \mathbf{J_d} = \frac{\partial \mathbf{D}}{\partial t} \). This term ensures that the continuity equation for electric current is satisfied in cases of time-varying fields, and it plays a crucial role in describing the behavior of electromagnetic waves and fields.
The concept of displacement current was introduced by James Clerk Maxwell in the 19th century to extend Ampère's Law to include changing electric fields, thereby helping to unify the laws of electricity and magnetism into what we now call Maxwell's equations.