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The method of image charges (also known as the method of images and method of mirror charges) is a basic problem-solving tool in electrostatics.The name originates from the replacement of certain elements in the original layout with fictitious charges, which replicates the boundary conditions of the problem (see Dirichlet boundary conditions or Neumann boundary conditions).
The electric dipole moment is a measure of the separation of positive and negative electrical charges within a system: that is, a measure of the system's overall polarity. The SI unit for electric dipole moment is the coulomb-metre (C⋅m). The debye (D) is another unit of measurement used in atomic physics and chemistry.
In practice, many fields can be well approximated with a finite number of multipole moments (although an infinite number may be required to reconstruct a field exactly). A typical application is to approximate the field of a localized charge distribution by its monopole and dipole terms.
The size of the induced dipole moment is equal to the product of the strength of the external field and the dipole polarizability of ρ. Dipole moment values can be obtained from measurement of the dielectric constant. Some typical gas phase values given with the unit debye are: [7] carbon dioxide: 0; carbon monoxide: 0.112 D; ozone: 0.53 D
Within the Standard Model, such a dipole is predicted to be non-zero but very small, at most 10 −38 e⋅cm, [2] where e stands for the elementary charge. The discovery of a substantially larger electron electric dipole moment would imply a violation of both parity invariance and time reversal invariance. [3] [4]
The polarizability of an atom or molecule is defined as the ratio of its induced dipole moment to the local electric field; in a crystalline solid, one considers the dipole moment per unit cell. [1] Note that the local electric field seen by a molecule is generally different from the macroscopic electric field that would be measured externally.
The presence of a magnetic toroidic dipole moment T in condensed matter is due to the presence of a magnetoelectric effect: Application of a magnetic field H in the plane of a toroidal solenoid leads via the Lorentz force to an accumulation of current loops and thus to an electric polarization perpendicular to both T and H.
Every electric current possesses a (pseudo)vectorial quantity called a magnetic dipole moment about a given origin. In the special case that the current consists of a single moving point charge, the magnetic dipole moment about any given origin turns out to be, up to a scalar factor, equal to the areal velocity of the charge about the same origin.