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The dipole model of the Earth's magnetic field is a first order approximation of the rather complex true Earth's magnetic field. Due to effects of the interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), and the solar wind , the dipole model is particularly inaccurate at high L-shells (e.g., above L=3), but may be a good approximation for lower L-shells.
The lowest-degree Gauss coefficient, g 0 0, gives the contribution of an isolated magnetic charge, so it is zero. The next three coefficients – g 1 0, g 1 1, and h 1 1 – determine the direction and magnitude of the dipole contribution. The best fitting dipole is tilted at an angle of about 10° with respect to the rotational axis, as ...
[1] The geomagnetic poles are antipodal points where the axis of a best-fitting dipole intersects the surface of Earth. This theoretical dipole is equivalent to a powerful bar magnet at the center of Earth, and comes closer than any other point dipole model to describing the magnetic field observed at Earth's surface.
The field of a point dipole has a particularly simple form, and the order-1 term in the multipole expansion is precisely the point dipole field. Although there are no known magnetic monopoles in nature, there are magnetic dipoles in the form of the quantum-mechanical spin associated with particles such as electrons (although the accurate ...
Monopole moments have a 1/r rate of decrease, dipole moments have a 1/r 2 rate, quadrupole moments have a 1/r 3 rate, and so on. The higher the order, the faster the potential drops off. Since the lowest-order term observed in magnetic sources is the dipole term, it dominates at large distances.
In the magnetic pole model, the magnetic dipole moment is due to two equal and opposite magnetic charges that are separated by a distance, d. In this model, m is similar to the electric dipole moment p due to electrical charges: =, where q m is the ‘magnetic charge’. The direction of the magnetic dipole moment points from the negative south ...
The magnetic field of a magnetic dipole has an inverse cubic dependence in distance, so its order of magnitude at the earth surface can be approximated by multiplying the above result with (R outer core ⁄ R Earth) 3 = (2890 ⁄ 6370) 3 = 0.093 , giving 2.5×10 −5 Tesla, not far from the measured value of 3×10 −5 Tesla at the equator.
In astrophysics, a magnetic mirror point is a point where the motion of a charged particle trapped in a magnetic field (such as the (approximately) dipole field of the Earth) reverses its direction. More precisely, it is the point where the projection of the particle's velocity vector in the direction of the field vector is equal to zero.