0000000000121653

AUTHOR

W. Fugmann

The electromagnetic field of an accelerated charge in the proper reference frame of a noninertial observer

The Lienard-Wiechert formulae for the electric and magnetic fields of an accelerated charge moving along an arbitrary world-line are generalized so that they can be applied by noninertial observers using accelerating and rotating reference frames. For this purpose, a relativistic coordinate-independent formalism suggested by DeFacio, Dennis and Eetzloff is extended to the description of all kinematical aspects required in the theory of the retarded fields of a point charge. The generalized Lienard-Wiechert formula is applied to a number of special situations, demonstrating that it allows a lucid and concise treatment of a number of subtle problems such as the role of the «relativity of acce…

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Classical electromagnetic radiation in noninertial reference frames

Customarily electromagnetic radiation is defined with reference to some inertial laboratory frame. But such a definition is too narrow to be applicable to questions concerning accelerated observers,e.g. why an accelerated observer does not receive radiation from a co-accelerating charge. It is shown in this paper that a radiation concept introduced for inertial observers by Rohrlich and Teitelboim allows an extension to noninertial (accelerating and rotating) reference frames in a natural way. The generalized concept is explicitly dependent on the proper acceleration and the rotation of the observer’s laboratory frame. The case of radiation due to an accelerated point charge is treated in f…

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