charge density, the are, in a sense, projections of the moments of electric charge: is the monopole moment; the are projections of the dipole moment, the are projections of the quadrupole moment, etc.

Applications of multipole moments

The multipole expansion applies to 1/r scalar potentials, examples of which include the electric potential and the gravitational potential. For these potentials, the expression can be used to approximate

1.Previous
3.Next