2008/07/08 by Abraham I. Harte · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0264-9381/25/23/235020
published as Class.Quant.Grav.25:235020,2008 · 21 pages
arxiv created 2008/07/08 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01
A non-perturbative formalism is developed that simplifies the understanding of self-forces and self-torques acting on extended scalar charges in curved spacetimes. Laws of motion are locally derived using momenta generated by a set of generalized Killing fields. Self-interactions that may be interpreted as arising from the details of a body's internal structure are shown to have very simple geometric and physical interpretations. Certain modifications to the usual definition for a center-of-mass are identified that significantly simplify the motions of charges with strong self-fields. A derivation is also provided for a generalized form of the Detweiler-Whiting axiom that pointlike charges should react only to the so-called regular component of their self-field. Standard results are shown to be recovered for sufficiently small charge distributions.