Applications of electrostatic capacitance and charging

The capacitance of an arbitrarily shaped object is calculated with the same second-kind integral equation method used for computing static and dynamic polarizabilities. The capacitance is simply the dielectric permittivity multiplied by the area of the object and divided by the squared norm of the Neumann-Poincare operator eigenfunction corresponding to the largest eigenvalue. The norm of this eigenfunction varies slowly with shape thus enabling the definition of two scale-invariant shape factors and perturbative calculations of capacitance. The result is extended to a special class of capacitors in which the electrodes are the equipotential surfaces generated by the equilibrium charge on the object. This extension allows analytical expressions of capacitance for confocal spheroidal capacitors and finite cylinders. Moreover, a second order formula for thin constant-thickness capacitors is given with direct applications for capacitance of membranes in living cells and of supercapacitors. For axisymmetric geometries, a fast and accurate numerical method is provided. (C) 2013 AIP Publishing LLC.