Relativistic Dynamics of a Charged Sphere - (Lecture Notes in Physics) 2nd Edition by Arthur Yaghjian (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

"This is a remarkable book. [...] A fresh and novel approach to old problems and to their solution." -Fritz Rohrlich, Emeritus Professor of Physics, Syracuse University

This reexamination of the classical model of the electron, introduced by H. A. Lorentz more than 100 years ago, serves as both a review of the subject and as a context for presenting new material. The new material includes the determination and elimination of the noncausal behavior in the original equation of motion, and the derivation of the binding forces and total stress-momentum-energy tensor for a charged insulator moving with arbitrary velocity. The final equations of motion are given in a number of different formats to allow them to be readily used by physicists, engineers, and mathematicians.

From the Back Cover

"This is a remarkable book. [...] A fresh and novel approach to old problems and to their solution." -Fritz Rohrlich, Professor Emeritus of Physics, Syracuse University

This book takes a fresh, systematic approach to determining the equation of motion for the classical model of the electron introduced by Lorentz more than 100 years ago. The original derivations of Lorentz, Abraham, Poincaré and Schott are modified and generalized for the charged insulator model of the electron to obtain an equation of motion consistent with causal solutions to the Maxwell-Lorentz equations and the equations of special relativity. The solutions to the resulting equation of motion are free of pre-acceleration and runaway behavior. Binding forces and a total stress-momentum-energy tensor are derived for the charged insulator model. Appendices provide simplified derivations of the self-force and power at arbitrary velocity.

In this Second Edition, the method used for eliminating the noncausal pre-acceleration from the equation of motion has been generalized to eliminate pre-deceleration as well. The generalized method is applied to obtain the causal solution to the equation of motion of a charge accelerating in a uniform electric field for a finite time interval. Alternative derivations of the Landau-Lifshitz approximation are given as well as necessary and sufficient conditions for the Landau-Lifshitz approximation to be an accurate solution to the exact Lorentz-Abraham-Dirac equation of motion.

The book is a valuable resource for students and researchers in physics, engineering, and the history of science.

About the Author

Arthur D. Yaghjian works primarily as a research engineer in the area of electromagnetic theory. His work has led to the determination of electric and magnetic fields in material media, as well as to the development of exact, numerical, and high-frequency methods for predicting and measuring the near and far fields of antennas and scatterers in both the time and frequency domains. His contributions to the determination of the classical equations of motion of accelerated charged particles have found recognition in a number of texts such as the latest edition of Jackson's "Classical Electrodynamics." He has published two books, several chapters in other books, and about 50 archival journal articles, four of which received best paper awards. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and presently serves as an IEEE Distinguished Lecturer.