Magnetic dipole

The magnetic field due to natural magnetic dipoles (upper left), magnetic monopoles (upper right), an electric current in a circular loop (lower left) or in a solenoid (lower right). All generate the same field profile when the arrangement is infinitesimally small.[1]

In electromagnetism, a magnetic dipole is the limit of either a closed loop of electric current or a pair of poles as the size of the source is reduced to zero while keeping the magnetic moment constant.

It is a magnetic analogue of the electric dipole, but the analogy is not perfect. In particular, a true magnetic monopole, the magnetic analogue of an electric charge, has never been observed in nature. However, magnetic monopole quasiparticles have been observed as emergent properties of certain condensed matter systems.[2] Moreover, one form of magnetic dipole moment is associated with a fundamental quantum property—the spin of elementary particles.

Because magnetic monopoles do not exist, the magnetic field at a large distance from any static magnetic source looks like the field of a dipole with the same dipole moment. For higher-order sources (e.g. quadrupoles) with no dipole moment, their field decays towards zero with distance faster than a dipole field does.

  1. ^ I.S. Grant, W.R. Phillips (2008). Electromagnetism (2nd ed.). Manchester Physics, John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-92712-9.
  2. ^ Magnetic monopoles spotted in spin ices, September 3, 2009.