Microscopic model of the self-induced torque in metamaterials

We investigate the effect of the self-induced torque in metamaterials. The essence of the effect is that an electric dipole placed in anisotropic structure experiences a torque arising from the response of the structure polarized by the field of the test dipole. We perform rigorous calculations basing on the discrete dipole model and examine the domain of validity of the effective medium approximation by comparison of the rigorous results with approximate ones.