2007/12/31 by Ian Vega, Steven Detweiler · 92 citations
Engineering · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Artificial intelligence #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Classical mechanics #Computer science #Computer vision #Geophysics and Sensor Technology #Mathematical analysis #Mathematics #Physics #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum mechanics #Regularization (linguistics) #Spacetime #Time domain #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.77.084008
published in Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields 77(8) (American Physical Society) · 15 pages, 12 figures, 1 table. More figures, extended summary
arxiv created 2008/01/15 · openalex publication_date 2008/04/08 · arxiv updated 2010/05/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We propose an approach for the calculation of self-forces, energy fluxes and waveforms arising from moving point charges in curved spacetimes. As opposed to mode-sum schemes that regularize the self-force derived from the singular retarded field, this approach regularizes the retarded field itself. The singular part of the retarded field is first analytically identified and removed, yielding a finite, differentiable remainder from which the self-force is easily calculated. This regular remainder solves a wave equation which enjoys the benefit of having a nonsingular source. Solving this wave equation for the remainder completely avoids the calculation of the singular retarded field along with the attendant difficulties associated with numerically modeling a delta-function source. From this differentiable remainder one may compute the self-force, the energy flux, and also a waveform which reflects the effects of the self-force. As a test of principle, we implement this method using a 4th-order (1+1) code, and calculate the self-force for the simple case of a scalar charge moving in a circular orbit around a Schwarzschild black hole. We achieve agreement with frequency-domain results to \ensuremath∼0.1% or better.