Communication: On the origin of the surface term in the Ewald formula

A transparent derivation of the Ewald formula for the electrostatic energy of a periodic three-dimensional system of point charges is presented. The problem of the conditional convergence of the lattice sum is dealt with by separating off, in a physically natural and mathematically simple way, long-range non-absolutely integrable contributions in the series. The general expression, for any summation order, of the surface (or dipole) term emerges very directly from those long-range contributions. (C) 2014 AIP Publishing LLC.