Author(s)

Saeed Fathi¹, Hamed Razavi²

¹University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
²Islamic Azad University, Science and Research Branch, Tehran, Iran.

An accelerating charged particle exerts a force upon itself. If we model the particle as a spherical shell of radius R, and calculate the force of one piece of this shell on another and eventually integrate over the whole particle, there will be a net force on the particle due to the breakdown of Newton’s third law. This symmetry breaking mechanism relies on the finite size of the particle; thus, as Feynman has stated, conceptually this mechanism doesn’t make good sense for point particles. Nonetheless, in the point particle limit, two terms survive in the self-force series: R⁰ and R^-1 terms. The R⁰ term can alternatively be attributed to the well-known radiation reaction but the origin of R^-1 term is not clear. In this study, we will show that this new term can be accounted for by an inductive mechanism in which the changing magnetic field induces an inductive force on the particle. Using this inductive mechanism, we derive R^-1 term in an extremely easy way.

Electromagnetic Self-Force, Self-Force Mechanisms, Radiation Reaction, Faraday’s Law of Induction

Fathi, S. and Razavi, H. (2017) Electromagnetic Self-Force Mechanisms and Origin of R^-1 Term. Journal of Applied Mathematics and Physics, 5, 1099-1105. doi: 10.4236/jamp.2017.55096.