Electromagnetic back-reaction from currents on a straight string
arXiv:1405.2097 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.90.023510
Abstract
Charge carriers moving at the speed of light along a straight, superconducting cosmic string carry with them a logarithmically divergent slab of electromagnetic field energy. Thus no finite local input can induce a current that travels unimpeded to infinity. Rather, electromagnetic back-reaction must damp this current asymptotically to nothing. We compute this back-reaction and find that the electromagnetic fields and currents decline exactly as rapidly as necessary to prevent a divergence. We briefly discuss the corresponding gravitational situation.
14 pages, 4 figures; corrected Eq. (41), clarified language after referee feedback