Why do we use Local field correction?

hokhani

Knowing the dielectric constant of a medium we can earn the electric field at any point in that medium which is deferent from the applied external electric field. So why do we use the Local field correction?

mfb

The dielectric constant is a macroscopic quantity - you get this value if you average the effects of many atoms/molecules. If you look closer, you might find small deviations from that average.

Meir Achuz

There are huge differences from the average.
E gets huge and changes sign near atoms.

DrDu

You can include local field corrections by working with a dielectric function which includes spatial dispersion. In the case of a homogeneous medium, this means that epsilon is a tensor which depends on frequency omega and wavevector k.

hokhani

[QUOTE=DrDu;4190199]You can include local field corrections by working with a dielectric function which includes spatial dispersion. In the case of a homogeneous medium, this means that epsilon is a tensor which depends on frequency omega and wavevector k.[/QUOTE

By this, do you mean that we can also include local field correction in the dielectric constant?

DrDu

I wrote dielectric function instead of dielectric constant as the effects cannot be included in a single number.