Electric/magnetic dipolein an electromagnetic field: force, torque and energy

Abstract

In this paper we collect the relativistic expressions for the force, torque and energy of a small electric/magnetic dipole in an electromagnetic field, which we recently obtained (A.L. Kholmetskii et al., Eur. J. Phys. 33, L7 (2011), Prog. Electromagn. Res. B 45, 83 (2012), Can. J. Phys. 9, 576 (2013)) and consider a number of subtle effects, characterized the behavior of the dipole in an external field, which seem interesting from the practical viewpoint. © 2014, Società Italiana di Fisica and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.