Troubles with the radiation reaction in electrodynamics

The dynamics of a radiating charge is one of the oldest unsettled problems in classical physics. The standard Lorentz-Abraham-Dirac (LAD) equation of motion is known to suffer from several pathologies and ambiguities. This paper briefly reviews these issues, and reports on a new model that fixes the...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2016-11
Main Authors: Faci, Sofiane, Helayel-Neto, José A, Satheeshkumar, V H
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Equations of motion
Quantum electrodynamics
Regularization
Time lag
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The dynamics of a radiating charge is one of the oldest unsettled problems in classical physics. The standard Lorentz-Abraham-Dirac (LAD) equation of motion is known to suffer from several pathologies and ambiguities. This paper briefly reviews these issues, and reports on a new model that fixes these difficulties in a natural way. This model is based on a hypothesis that there is an infinitesimal time delay between action and reaction. This can be related to Feynman's regularization scheme, leading to a quasi-local QED with a natural UV cutoff, hence without the need for renormalization as the divergences are absent. Besides leading to a pathology-free equation of motion, the new model predicts a modification of the Larmor formula that is testable with current and near future ultra-intense lasers.
ISSN:2331-8422