Radiation Reaction Force on a Particle

TL;DR

This paper revises the classical radiation reaction force by including the Poynting-Robertson term, enabling a straightforward generalization to relativistic cases and accounting for particle mass change.

Contribution

It introduces the Poynting-Robertson term into the classical radiation reaction force, providing a more complete relativistic force expression.

Findings

Classical Abraham-Lorentz force is incomplete without the Poynting-Robertson term.

Adding this term accounts for mass change rate (dm/dt) in the force.

The generalized formula simplifies relativistic radiation reaction calculations.

Abstract

The Abrahamn Lorentz radiation reaction force term, with da/dt, derived in text books is shown to be incomplete. We show that, with the addition of a term, the classical radiation reaction force can be generalized to the relativistic force expression. This addition is the Poynting Robertson term, seen mostly in astrophysics and usually missing from texts in electromagnetism. With this term added, it takes into account the rate of change of mass dm/dt of the particle and makes the generalization to the relativisitic formula for force very straight forward.