Conformal behavior of the Lorentz-Dirac equation and Machian particle dynamics

Authors
Sonego, S
Citation
S. Sonego, Conformal behavior of the Lorentz-Dirac equation and Machian particle dynamics, J MATH PHYS, 40(8), 1999, pp. 3918-3924
Citations number
26
Categorie Soggetti
Physics
Journal title
JOURNAL OF MATHEMATICAL PHYSICS
ISSN journal
00222488 → ACNP
Volume
40
Issue
8
Year of publication
1999
Pages
3918 - 3924
Database
ISI
SICI code
0022-2488(199908)40:8<3918:CBOTLE>2.0.ZU;2-A
Abstract
It is shown that the self-interaction force on a pointlike electric charge in curved space-time has conformal weight -1. Motivated by this result, a c onformally covariant version of the Lorentz-Dirac equation is presented, wh ere the particle mass is treated as a position- and time-dependent quantity . This feature suggests that the underlying dynamics is Machian. (C) 1999 A merican Institute of Physics. [S0022-2488(99)04607-1].