User:Rhinde/Electric polarizability

Electric polarizability

The electric polarizabilities of an object are tensor quantities that describe how the object's electric multipole moments change when it is placed in an external electric field. The changes in the object's electric multipole moments that result from the application of an external electric field are typically said to be induced by the applied field. Strictly speaking, electric polarizabilities describe only those induced moments whose magnitudes are linearly proportional to the strength of the applied electric field; electric hyperpolarizabilities describe induced electric multipole moments whose magnitudes are proportional to the square, cube, or higher powers of the applied field's strength. In practice, however, the term "polarizability" is often used to describe both polarizabilities and hyperpolarizabilities.