Image systems for the reaction field inside spheroidal dielectric objects and applications

Abstract

Charges inside a dielectric object embedded in a dissimilar dielectric medium polarize the surrounding medium, which in turn makes a contribution, called the reaction field, to the electric field inside the object. In this work, we develop complete image systems for the reaction field inside a prolate or oblate spheroidal dielectric object embedded in an infinite dissimilar dielectric medium. In either case, an image system consists of a point image and a symmetric surface image over an exterior confocal spheroid that passes through the point image. As an application, the point image is applied into the generalized image charge solvation model (GICSM) and is tested in simulations of liquid water, and the results are analyzed in comparison with those obtained from the ICSM simulation as references. The results indicate that, for both the prolate and oblate cases, the single point image charge approximation for the reaction field inside the dielectric cavity of the model is good enough for the GICSM to faithfully reproduce typical static and dynamic properties of the liquid water at least when the spheroidal cavity has relatively small eccentricity.