[Physics] The dipole radiation pattern and spherical harmonics $Y_{10}$

electromagnetismmultipole-expansionopticsspherical harmonics

I am studying the multipole expansion of electromagnetic wave radiation pattern, and it is said that any fields can be decomposed into the spherical harmonics $Y_{lm}$.

However, for $l=1$, which corresponds to a dipole, the spherical harmonics looks like a dumbbell, as shown in the attached picture, but we know that an electric dipole should have a doughnut shape radiation pattern, I don't understand why they don't match, is there any relationship between them?

spherical harmonicsdipole radiation pattern
$$
\begin{array}{cc}
\left(\textbf{A}\right)~\text{spherical harmonics} & \left(\textbf{B}\right)~\text{dipole radiation pattern} \\
\hspace{300px} & \hspace{300px}
\end{array}
$$

Best Answer

The second plot you show is a generalization of the $Y_{lm}$ - it's a vector spherical harmonic; in addition, it differs from the electrostatic case in that the radial dependence is no longer a harmonic function (i.e. a solution to the Laplace equation), and it has been replaced by a wave solution (a spherical Bessel function, a solution to the monochromatic wave equation).

You can go into more mathsy detail if you really want (e.g. this for the general formalism, or this when you specialize to $l=1$ and stop caring about formal identification as spherical harmonics), but that's the core of the difference between those two.

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