Dielectric screening in a spherical cavity

Abstract

In this work we examine the electrostatic screening potential due to a point charge located off-centre in a spherical dielectric cavity. This potential is expanded for the case in which the dielectric constant ϵ is large, several methods of finding the terms in the expansion are investigated, and closed-form expressions are found through third order in ϵ along with error bounds. Finally, possible uses of these expressions in molecular dynamics simulations of isolated charged molecules are discussed.