General magnetostatic shape-shape interaction forces and torques

Expressions for the magnetostatic interaction force and torque between two magnetic objects of arbitrary shape are derived within the shape amplitude formalism. A generalized force is derived as the gradient of the magnetometric tensor field, which is the convolution of the cross-correlation of the object shapes with the dipolar tensor fields. Expressions for the mechanical and magnetic torques are also derived in terms of the magnetometric tensor field. Expressions suitable for numerical evaluation are given as finite Fourier summations. Example computations are given for the interactions between pairs of uniformly magnetized spheres (for which analytical results are compared to numerical results), cubes, octahedra, tetrahedra, and cuboctahedra. The accuracy of the derived numerical relations for energy, force, and torques is of the order of 0.1% for object spacings smaller than the object dimensions. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.