The electric polarization is electric dipole moment per unit volume. A polarized body acts as the bound volume and surface charge density
Indeed, summing the scalar potential of its dipoles and integrating by parts gives
This is exactly the potential of and .
For the central free charge, Gauss's law for the electric displacement field gives
Thus on the sphere,
For a time-independent field, Faraday's law gives . Integrating around a thin rectangular loop crossing and shrinking its height gives continuity of the tangential component:
A thin Gaussian pillbox and give continuity of the normal electric displacement field:
These are the electrostatic cases of the dielectric-interface boundary conditions.
The electric polarization is electric dipole moment per unit volume. It produces
The electric displacement field is useful because
so it separates free charge from the bound charge represented by . In a linear isotropic dielectric, .
Spherical symmetry and Gauss's law for give, on both sides of the interface,
Thus
With pointing from medium one to medium two, the net bound sheet charge at is the polarization jump
If one assigns surface charge separately to the inner body and outer medium, their contributions are and ; their sum is the displayed physical interface charge.