# Question regarding how to interpret dipole moment for bound charges

Harikesh_33
How do I interpret physically what dipole moment is ? The explanations that I received were "two charges seperated by a small distance " ,"it talks about ability of a dipole to rotate under the influence of an Electric Field " ,"Second term of the Multipole expansion" ,I get that these terms technically works for the definition of what a dipole moment is ,but I can't see how this definition works for bound charges .I mean P is the dipole moment per unit volume .I don't understand why should negative divergence of dipole moment per unit volume should give us the volume charge density .

What's stopping the dipole from attracting and collapsing in to each other .That begs the question ,do physical dipoles exist only in the case of insulators ?(In other cases (ie) in Multipole expansions we are just approximating the potential due to a charge distribution asthough a part of the potential is contributed by a dipole to make the problem simple) In the case of insulators the positive and the negative centres get shifted due to the E field ,and this creates a dipole ,now how does the rate at which it turns affect the volume density of bound charges(as the volume density is the negative divergence of dipole moment per unit volume ) ?