Universal Self Force from an Extended-Object Approach

Abstract

We present a consistent extended-object approach for determining the self force acting on an accelerating charged particle. In this approach one considers an extended charged object of finite size $\epsilon$, and calculates the overall contribution of the mutual electromagnetic forces. Previous implementations of this approach yielded divergent terms $\propto 1/\epsilon$ that could not be cured by mass-renormalization. Here we explain the origin of this problem and fix it. We obtain a consistent, universal, expression for the extended-object self force, which conforms with Dirac's well known formula.

Latex, one postscript figure, 4 pages

References in corpus (2)

• Mode sum regularization approach for the self-force in black hole spacetime
• Calculating the gravitational self force in Schwarzschild spacetime

Cited by in corpus (12)

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• Second-order gravitational self-force
• Calculation of the Self Force using the Extended-Object Approach
• On the electromagnetic origin of inertia and inertial mass
• On the motion of a classical charged particle
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• The Abraham-Lorentz force and electrodynamics at the classical electron radius
• Self-torque and angular momentum balance for a spinning charged sphere
• The non-existence of the self-accelerating dipole, and related questions
• Curing the Self-Force Runaway Problem in Finite-Difference Integration
• Electromagnetic self-force for axially symmetric charge on a spherical shell
• Interference in the radiation of two point-like charges