Magnetic moment
product of the electric current through a loop, the area enclosed by the loop and the unit vector perpendicular to the loop
In electromagnetism, the magnetic moment or magnetic dipole moment is a vector quantity which characterizes the strength and orientation of a magnet or other object or system that exerts a magnetic field. The magnetic dipole moment of an object determines the magnitude of torque the object experiences in a given magnetic field. When the same magnetic field is applied, objects with larger magnetic moments experience larger torques. The strength (and direction) of this torque depends not only on the magnitude of the magnetic moment but also on its orientation relative to the direction of the magnetic field. Its direction points from the south pole to the north pole of the magnet (i.e., inside the magnet).
The magnetic moment also expresses the magnetic force effect of a magnet. The magnetic field of a magnetic dipole is proportional to its magnetic dipole moment. The dipole component of an object's magnetic field is symmetric about the direction of its magnetic dipole moment, and decreases as the inverse cube of the distance from the object.
Example magnetic moments for subatomic particles include electron magnetic moment, nuclear magnetic moment, and nucleon magnetic moment.
Definition, units, and measurement
Definition
The magnetic moment can be defined as a vector relating the aligning torque on the object from an externally applied magnetic field to the field vector itself.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Magnetic moment” as product of the electric current through a loop, the area enclosed by the loop and the unit vector perpendicular to the loop. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q242657. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference.
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This entry incorporates text from “Magnetic moment” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.