Particle dynamics and deviation effects in the field of a strong electromagnetic wave
arXiv:1408.5486 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.89.104049
Abstract
Some strong field effects on test particle motion associated with the propagation of a plane electromagnetic wave in the exact theory of general relativity are investigated. Two different profiles of the associated radiation flux are considered in comparison, corresponding to either constant or oscillating electric and magnetic fields with respect to a natural family of observers. These are the most common situations to be experimentally explored, and have a well known counterpart in the flat spacetime limit. The resulting line elements are determined by a single metric function, which turns out to be expressed in terms of standard trigonometric functions in the case of a constant radiation flux, and in terms of special functions in the case of oscillating flux, leading to different features of test particle motion. The world line deviation between both uncharged and charged particles on different spacetime trajectories due to the combined effect of gravitational and electromagnetic forces is studied. The interaction of charged particles with the background radiation field is also discussed through a general relativistic description of the inverse Compton effect. Motion as well as deviation effects on particles endowed with spin are studied too. Special situations may occur in which the direction of the spin vector change during the interaction, leading to obsevables effects like spin-flip.
arXiv comment16 pages, 8 figures; published version
References in corpus (11)
- Probing Pulsar Winds Using Inverse Compton Scattering
- Geodesics for impulsive gravitational waves and the multiplication of distributions
- Motions and world-line deviations in Einstein-Maxwell theory
- Scattering of Spinning Test Particles by Plane Gravitational and Electromagnetic Waves
- Charged spinning particles on circular orbits in the Reissner-Nordström spacetime
- Worldline deviations of charged spinning particles
- World-line deviation and spinning particles
- Dixon's extended bodies and impulsive gravitational waves
- Scattering by an electromagnetic radiation field
- Gravitational waves interacting with a spinning charged particle in the presence of a uniform magnetic field
- Charged particles with spin in a gravitational wave and a uniform magnetic field