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Phys. Rev. D 70, 081701(R) (2004) [5 pages]

Lorentz-Dirac force from QED for linear acceleration

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Atsushi Higuchi1,* and Giles D. R. Martin1,†
1Department of Mathematics, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, United Kingdom

Received 21 July 2004; published 4 October 2004

We investigate the motion of a wave packet of a charged scalar particle linearly accelerated by a static potential in quantum electrodynamics. We calculate the expectation value of the position of the charged particle after the acceleration to first order in the fine structure constant in the →0 limit. We find that the change in the expectation value of the position (the position shift) due to radiation reaction agrees exactly with the result obtained using the Lorentz-Dirac force in classical electrodynamics. We also point out that the one-loop correction to the potential may contribute to the position change in this limit.

© 2004 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevD.70.081701
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevD.70.081701
PACS:
12.20.Ds, 03.65.Sq, 41.60.–m

*Email: ah28@york.ac.uk

Email: gdrm100@york.ac.uk