- #1
multipole
- 2
- 0
Upper undergraduate here. Lot of time spent in studying, but can't find acceptable answers in what follows.
To be more specific, my questions are related on "Classical Electrodynamics", Jackson 2nd edition, Sect. 4.2. (and 4.1 of course), titled "Multipole expansion of the Energy of a Charge distribution in an External field".
1. There is relation (4.24) which is expansion of energy:
[tex]W=q\Phi(0)- \textbf{p}\cdot\textbf{E}(0)-\frac{1}{6}\sum\sumQ_{ij}\frac{\partial E_{j}}{\partialx_{i}}(0)+...[/tex]
And after that follows "This expansion shows characteristic way in which the various multipoles intreact with an external field (the charge with potential, the dipole with the electric field, the quadrupole with the field gradient, and so on".
I am afraid that I can't understand what means, for example, that "dipole interact with el. field" and how can that be usefull? Can anyone explain this please.
2. In my (incomplete) notes from lectures there is statement about aplication of above - that "choosing different external el. field we can measure terms in expansion... For example, if E=const, third and higher terms vanish, because there is no changing in E, so W depends only of monopole and dipole terms".
These are very rough notes, so please if I can get more elaborate explanation.
3. (And third question is probably included in above two) How multipole expansion of scalar potential can give us some information about shapes of charge distribution?
4. If one ask me generally what multipole expansion is for? What concise answer should I give?
Sorry for too much questions, but this drives me crazy. I can't find answres in books, and can't get reasonable explanations in my mind, inspite of lot of time already invested.
Thanks in advance.
To be more specific, my questions are related on "Classical Electrodynamics", Jackson 2nd edition, Sect. 4.2. (and 4.1 of course), titled "Multipole expansion of the Energy of a Charge distribution in an External field".
1. There is relation (4.24) which is expansion of energy:
[tex]W=q\Phi(0)- \textbf{p}\cdot\textbf{E}(0)-\frac{1}{6}\sum\sumQ_{ij}\frac{\partial E_{j}}{\partialx_{i}}(0)+...[/tex]
And after that follows "This expansion shows characteristic way in which the various multipoles intreact with an external field (the charge with potential, the dipole with the electric field, the quadrupole with the field gradient, and so on".
I am afraid that I can't understand what means, for example, that "dipole interact with el. field" and how can that be usefull? Can anyone explain this please.
2. In my (incomplete) notes from lectures there is statement about aplication of above - that "choosing different external el. field we can measure terms in expansion... For example, if E=const, third and higher terms vanish, because there is no changing in E, so W depends only of monopole and dipole terms".
These are very rough notes, so please if I can get more elaborate explanation.
3. (And third question is probably included in above two) How multipole expansion of scalar potential can give us some information about shapes of charge distribution?
4. If one ask me generally what multipole expansion is for? What concise answer should I give?
Sorry for too much questions, but this drives me crazy. I can't find answres in books, and can't get reasonable explanations in my mind, inspite of lot of time already invested.
Thanks in advance.