Equilibria of Riesz potentials generated by point charges at the roots of unity (Q902186)

The author is concerned with the Mawxell problem in 3D regarding the study of equilibrium points of the Riesz potential \(1/r^{2\beta}\) for positive unit charges placed at the vertices of a regular polygon. It is obtained that the equilibrium points lie on the perpendicular bisectors of the sides of the polygon. Furthermore, an asymptotic analysis of the equilibrium points with respect to the number of charges \(n\) and the Riesz parameter \(\beta\) is carried out. In particular, for \(\beta\) in a neighbourhood of 1, it is shown that apart from the origin, the Riesz potential has one nonzero equilibrium point on each perpendicular bisector.