51

Larmors Formula

51

51 One of the most important results of classical electrodynamics is the fact that accelerated charges emit radiation. Here, we will derive the formula describing this result, Larmors formula, using a classical treatment due to J.J. Thomson and revived by Malcolm Longair. The ab initio derivation using Maxwells equations gives the same result. We start by taking a stationary charge at rest at time t = 0. The eld lines from that charge have the simple conguration shown on the left side of the gure below. We now accelerate the charge by a velocity difference v for a time interval t and look at the eld line conguration at a time t after this. T

Outside of a sphere of radius r ct the eld lines still point towards the original position of the charge, because the information about the acceleration has not yet moved farther out than r. Inside of this sphere the eld lines point towards the location the charge had after the acceleration. Properly spoken, the gure is not correct as the charge continued to drift with its new velocity since the end of the acceleration. The eld lines in the gure should reect this, but given that that information has not yet propagated out to r either, we can ignore it, and all of the computations we do below will only need information local ti r. Since the electric eld lines have to be connected, there is a small region of width ct in which the electric eld has a non-radial component. An observer in this region will measure a temporal change in the E -eld strength. By denition, a time dependent E -eld is electromagnetic radiation and therefore this Gedankenexperiment has shown us that accelerating a charge will always lead to electromagnetic radiation! To obtain the power radiated by the accelerated charge we need to know the strength of the electric eld in the region of the electromagnetic pulse. This can be done by considering the following sketch of one E -eld line:

51

cd

t dv ts in

Er

r= dv ts in
v dt
where, for simplicity dt = t and dv = v . From simple geometry, one nds for the ratio of the electric elds in the pulse region:

ct

vt sin E = Er ct Er follows from Coulombs law: Er =

and because were observing at time t:

(5.1)

q
4
0

r2

(5.2)

r = ct
Inserting Er and r into Eq. (5.1) gives

(5.3)

E = Er

q 1 1 v t sin v t sin = t c 4 0 r ct t c q 1 v sin 4 0 rc2

(5.4)

In the limit t 0, we can identify v/t with the acceleration v (where the dot denotes differentiation with respect to time), and therefore we nally obtain

E =

(5.5)

51 So, during the pulse the E -eld in the -direction changes from 0 to E and back to 0. This is a pulse of electromagnetic radiation. The energy ow per unit area and per second, S , is given from Poyntings law as

S=

0 cE

(5.6)

and therefore

S=

0c

q2 16 2

1
2 0

c4r2

v2 =

1 16 2c3
0r 2

q 2 v 2 sin2

(5.7)

This means that the energy loss has dipolar form, as shown in the following gure. Often, this equation is called Larmors formula (although we will encounter another Larmors formula below). .

d Erad n

Note that the energy loss is symmetric, this means that the radiating particle is only loosing energy, but not momentum. To obtain the total energy lost by the particle, we need to integrate the energy lost over all directions

dE = dt

1
2 3 2 2 4 sr 16 c 0 r

q 2v 2 sin2 r2 d

(5.8)

51 where d = sin dd is the surface element of a sphere, and are the usual spherical coordinates, with going from 0 to and from 0 to 2 . The total surface area of a sphere is 4 steradians (abbreviated sr). Performing the integral, lumping all constants into a helper variable A gives

=A
2 sr

sin2 d

(5.9) (5.10) (5.11) (5.12)

=A
0

sin2 2 sin d

= 2A
0

sin3 d

8 3

And therefore we obtain Larmors formula for the energy loss of an accelerated charge:

q2v2 dE 8 1 = q2v2 = 2 c3 dt 3 16 6c3 0 0

(5.13)