• DOI:10.1103/PhysRevD.68.041701
• Corpus ID: 22180703

Universal Self Force from an Extended-Object Approach

@article{Ori2003UniversalSF,
  title={Universal Self Force from an Extended-Object Approach},
  author={Amos Ori and Eran Rosenthal},
  journal={Physical Review D},
  year={2003},
  volume={68},
  pages={041701}
}

• A. Ori, E. Rosenthal
• Published 1 May 2002
• Physics
• Physical Review D

We present a simple approach to determine the self-force acting on an accelerating charged particle. In this approach one considers an extended charged object of finite size $\ensuremath{\epsilon},$ and calculates the overall contribution of the mutual electromagnetic forces at the limit $\stackrel{\ensuremath{\rightarrow}}{\ensuremath{\epsilon}}0.$ Previous implementations of this approach often yielded a divergent term $\ensuremath{\propto}1/\ensuremath{\epsilon}$ that could not be cured by mass renormalization. Here we explain the origin of this problem and provide a simple method for fixing it, thereby generalizing and simplifying previous analyses. We obtain a consistent, universal, expression for the extended-object self-force, which conforms with Dirac's well known formula.