2013/07/31 by Joseph Kuchar, Eric Poisson, Ian Vega
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Boundary (topology) #Charge (physics) #Conformal map #Constant (computer programming) #Cosmological constant #De Sitter universe #Monotonic function #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Spectrum (functional analysis) #Universe #de Sitter–Schwarzschild metric #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0264-9381/30/23/235033
13 pages, 3 figures
arxiv created 2013/07/31 · openalex publication_date 2013/11/08 · arxiv updated 2015/06/16 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
We compute the self-force acting on an electric charge at rest in Schwarzschild-de Sitter spacetimes, allowing the cosmological constant to be either positive or negative. In the case of a positive cosmological constant, we show that the self-force is always positive, representing a repulsion from the black hole, and monotonically decreasing with increasing distance from the black hole. The spectrum of results is richer in the case of a negative cosmological constant. Here the self-force is not always positive --- it is negative when the black-hole and cosmological scales are comparable and the charge is close to the black hole --- and not always monotonically decreasing --- it is actually monotonically increasing when the cosmological scale is sufficiently small compared to the black-hole scale. The self-force also approaches a constant asymptotic value when the charge is moved to large cosmological distances; this feature can be explained in terms of an interaction between the charge and the conformal boundary at infinity, which acts as a grounded conductor.