Weighted energy problem on the unit sphere (Q503408)

This paper addresses the weighted energy problem for the Newtonian kernel on the unit sphere in \(\mathbb{R}^{3}\) in the presence of an external field that has rotational symmetry about the polar axis. The author describes the support of the extremal measure and obtains an explicit formula for the equilibrium density. Applications are given to the case of an external field generated by a point charge on the polar axis, and to the case of a quadratic external field.