2015/07/21 by Dieter Gromes, Gromes, Dieter
Physics and Astronomy · #Classical Physics (physics.class-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum Mechanics and Applications #Quantum and Classical Electrodynamics #physics.class-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1507.05736
13 pages
arxiv created 2015/07/21 · openalex publication_date 2015/07/21 · arxiv updated 2015/07/22 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We calculate the energy radiated coherently by a system of N charged non relativistic particles. It disagrees with the energy loss which is obtained if one employs the Lorentz Abraham Dirac (LAD) equation for each particle, and sums up the contributions. This fact was already clearly stated in the classical literature long ago. The reason for the discrepancy is the omission of the mixing terms in the Poynting vector. For some simple systems we present a generalized equation for the radiation reaction force which cures this defect. The counter examples show that the LAD equation cannot be generally valid and that all "proofs" must fail somewhere. We demonstrate this failure for some popular examples in the literature.