polarizability

(noun)

The relative tendency of a system of electric charges to become polarized in the presence of an external electric field

Related Terms

Examples of polarizability in the following topics:

  • Scattering of Light by the Atmosphere

    • Rayleigh scattering is due to the polarizability of an individual molecule.
    • where I is the resulting intensity, I0 is the original intensity, α is the polarizability, λ is the wavelength, R is the distance to the particle, and θ is the scattering angle.

  • Polarization

    • This constant is the degree of their polarizability (the extent to which they become polarized).