Electric dipole

In physics, 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 electric field strength of the dipole is proportional to the magnitude of dipole moment. The SI units for electric dipole moment are Coulomb-meter (C·m), however the most commonly used unit is the Debye (D).

Theoretically, an electric dipole is defined by the first-order term of the multipole expansion, and consists of two equal and opposite charges infinitely close together. This is unrealistic, as real dipoles have separated charge. However, because the charge separation is very small compared to everyday lengths, the error introduced by treating real dipoles like they are theoretically perfect is usually negligible. The direction of dipole is usually defined from the negative charge towards the positive charge.

Often in physics the dimensions of a massive object can be ignored and can be treated as a pointlike object, i.e. a point particle. Point particles with electric charge are referred to as point charges. Two point charges, one with charge +q and the other one with charge −q separated by a distance d, constitute an electric dipole (a special case of an electric multipole). For this case, the electric dipole moment has a magnitude

and is directed from the negative charge to the positive one. Some authors may split d in half and use s = d/2 since this quantity is the distance between either charge and the center of the dipole, leading to a factor of two in the definition.

A stronger mathematical definition is to use vector algebra, since a quantity with magnitude and direction, like the dipole moment of two point charges, can be expressed in vector form

where d is the displacement vector pointing from the negative charge to the positive charge. The electric dipole moment vector p also points from the negative charge to the positive charge.

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