The electrostatic force between a charged conducting sphere and a charged dielectric sphere in an arbitrarily oriented external electric field

Summary

The electrostatic force between a charged conducting sphere and a charged dielectric sphere in a uniform, arbitrarily oriented external electric field is obtained and presented in terms of force coefficients which depend only on the relative geometry of the two spheres and the dielectric constants of the dielectric sphere and the medium. When the dielectric constant of the dielectric sphere is allowed to approach infinity, the resulting computed force agrees with that ofDavis (1964) for two conducting spheres, and when the external field and the charge on the dielectric sphere are set to zero, the resulting force agrees with that ofHall andBeard (1975) for a charged conducting sphere near an uncharged dielectric sphere.