Levitation Force between a Horizontally Oriented Point Magnetic Dipole and a Superconducting Sphere

The magnetic interaction between a point dipole of horizontally oriented moment and a superconducting sphere in the complete Meissner state is investigated in detail. It is demonstrated that the levitation force for this configuration is precisely one half the value of the configuration with vertically oriented point dipole. An extension to other applied fields, still assuming the perfect flux exclusion state, is presented. The results have application to models for magnetic levitation and magnetic force microscopy.