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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.
When a dielectric is placed in an external electric field, its molecules gain electric dipole moment and the dielectric is said to be polarized. Electric polarization of a given dielectric material sample is defined as the quotient of electric dipole moment (a vector quantity, expressed as coulombs*meters (C*m) in SI units) to volume (meters ...
Using an imaginary box, it is possible to use Gauss's law to explain the relationship between electric displacement and free charge. Consider an infinite parallel plate capacitor where the space between the plates is empty or contains a neutral, insulating medium. In both cases, the free charges are only on the metal capacitor plates.
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
A diagram showing the bond dipole moments of boron trifluoride. δ- shows an increase in negative charge and δ+ shows an increase in positive charge. Note that the dipole moments drawn in this diagram represent the shift of the valence electrons as the origin of the charge, which is opposite the direction of the actual electric dipole moment.
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 moment of force, or torque, is a first moment: =, or, more generally, .; Similarly, angular momentum is the 1st moment of momentum: =.Momentum itself is not a moment.; The electric dipole moment is also a 1st moment: = for two opposite point charges or () for a distributed charge with charge density ().