Magnetic dipole
= Magnetic dipole
{wiki}
A localized magnetic source described at leading nonvanishing dipole order by a <magnetic dipole moment>. A small current loop is one classical model. The source object, its moment vector and the resulting <magnetic dipole field> are distinct concepts. At large distance from a source with nonzero dipole moment, higher multipoles give smaller corrections; if the dipole moment vanishes, a higher-order term can lead instead.