Abstract
The elastic interaction energy between a point defect and a stress field is determined for the case in which the point‐defect displacement field has spheroidal symmetry, called the shape interaction. Results are given for the stress field of an edge dislocation, including a term from excluding the elastic interaction arising from the defect and dislocation core regions. With parameters appropriate to an fcc lattice it is then shown that a vacancy will tend to migrate around the dislocation to the compressional side, but that there is an energy barrier in the radial direction between the vacancy and the dislocation on the compressional side.