INTERACTION OF HAWKING RADIATION AND A STATIC ELECTRIC CHARGE - ART. NO. 084027

We investigate whether the equality found for the response of static s calar sources interacting (i) with Hawking radiation in Schwarzschild spacetime and (ii) with the Fulling-Davies-Unruh thermal bath in the R indler wedge is maintained in the case of electric charges. We find a finite result in the Schwarzschild case, which is computed exactly, in contrast with the divergent result associated with the infrared catas trophe in the Rindler case, i.e., in the case of uniformly accelerated charges in Minkowski spacetime. Thus the equality found for scalar so urces does not hold for electric charges. [S0556-2821(98)00620-1].