A new look at the pushing force of an electromagnetic wave on a classical charged particle

The interaction between a plane wave and a classical charged particle is reviewed in this paper. A matrix formulation is used to derive the relativistic motion of the particle due to the Lorentz force of a spatially homogeneous time-harmonic radiation field. The Landau-Lifshitz approach to the radia...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:European journal of physics 2015-09, Vol.36 (5), p.55029-14
Main Authors: Essen, Hanno, Sten, Johan C-E
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Charged particles
classical charged particle
Constants
Damping
Lorentz force
Mathematical analysis
Oscillations
plane electromagnetic wave
Plane waves
Pushing
radiation damping force
solution to equation of motion
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Summary:The interaction between a plane wave and a classical charged particle is reviewed in this paper. A matrix formulation is used to derive the relativistic motion of the particle due to the Lorentz force of a spatially homogeneous time-harmonic radiation field. The Landau-Lifshitz approach to the radiation damping force is then investigated for the same field. In conclusion only the radiation damping accelerates the particle in the direction of the Poynting vector for this type of field. The Lorentz force only leads to an extra constant drift velocity, plus oscillations with the frequency of the field.
ISSN:0143-0807
1361-6404
1361-6404
DOI:10.1088/0143-0807/36/5/055029