ABSTRACT

This chapter makes a general analysis of the potential due to a given charge distribution outside of that distribution in terms of spherical harmonics. It discusses the geometry of field point and source point for a bounded charge distribution. The chapter calculates the interaction energy of the charge distribution with an additional point charge located at a point lying far outside the charge distribution using the potential. The energy is formulated in terms of the interaction of the charge multiple moments of each distribution so as to seek a generalization of the dipole-dipole interaction. Since the two charge distributions are non-overlapping, one can expand the denominator in a double Taylor series.