On the interaction of point charges in an arbitrary domain

Silbergleit, Alexander; Nemenman, Ilya; Mandel, Ilya

On the interaction of point charges in an arbitrary domain

Authors

Silbergleit, Alexander

Nemenman, Ilya

Mandel, Ilya

Description

We develop a systematic approach to calculating the electrostatic force between point charges in an arbitrary geometry with arbitrary boundary conditions. When the boundary is present, the simple expression for the force acting on a charge as ``the charge times the field it is placed in'' becomes ill-defined. However, this rule can be salvaged if the field in question is redefined to include all the terms that do not diverge at the charge position, in particular, those due to the charge itself. The proof requires handling the self-action energy divergence for point charges, which is accomplished by means of a geometrical regularization.
6 pages, 1 figure, RevTeX4b5