Radiation reaction and the acceleration-dependent mass increase of a charged sphere undergoing uniform acceleration

Kang, Teyoun and Noble, Adam and Yoffe, Samuel R. and Jaroszynski, Dino A. and Hur, Min Sup (2021) Radiation reaction and the acceleration-dependent mass increase of a charged sphere undergoing uniform acceleration. Physics Letters A, 407. 127445. ISSN 0375-9601 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.physleta.2021.127445)

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Abstract

Photon emission from a uniformly accelerated charge is among the most mysterious physical phenomena. Theories based on the Lorentz-Abraham-Dirac equation mostly conclude that a uniformly accelerated point charge cannot feel radiation reaction. Such a conclusion suggests that the origin of the photon energy is unclear. In this paper, we determine the self-force of a uniformly accelerated charged sphere using the Lorentz force equation, with an assumption that the sphere is Lorentz-contracted during the acceleration. For large acceleration, the calculated self-force converges to the radiation reaction (given by the Larmor formula) via a new factor γa, which describes an acceleration-dependent increase in the effective mass. This increased mass makes it harder to accelerate the particle (compared to a point-charge), which means more energy should be provided to the particle in order to get the expected acceleration. This extra energy can be interpreted as the origin of the photon energy.