Friday, July 18, 2014

homework and exercises - Relativistic charged particle in a constant uniform electric field


I'm doing some special relativity exercises. I have to find x(t) and v(t) of a charged particle left at rest in t=0 in an external constant uniform electric field E=E0ˆi, then with that velocity I should find the Liénard–Wiechert radiated power.


I will show you what I did but I feel that it is wrong.



We should solve the equation of motion given by


dpμdτ=qcFμνuν


The four-velocity is given by


uμ=(u0,u1,u2,u3)=γ(c,v1,v2,v3)


where vα are the components of the three-velocity. The four-momentum is


pμ=muμ


This will give us four equtions where two of them will give a constant velocities and the other two are


dγdτ=qE0mc2γv1


dγdτv1+γdv1dτ=qE0mγ


Replacing (2) in (3) gives



dv1dτ=qE0mc2(v1)2+qE0m


The solution of the ODE (4) gives something like


v1(τ)=Atanh(Bτ)


This component of the three-velocity is in terms of the proper time τ and the problem ask me to find the velocity in terms of the time t. So my attempt was to solve


dtdτ=γ(τ)=11(v1(τ))2c2


and then replacing this solution for τ in (5). But the solution of (6) is this. Which doesn't make any sense to me.


I think that I'm misunderstanding something or missing something that will give me a easier solution to this problem. I thought it because in the Liénard–Wiechert radiated power I sould do dv1/dt which is almost impossible to do it without WolframAlpha.




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