On the gravitational self-energy of a spherical shell

TL;DR

This paper explores the classical gravitational self-energy of a spherical shell, presenting two solutions within Newtonian gravity, including a novel one that suggests an extremely small electron radius.

Contribution

It introduces a new solution for the gravitational self-energy of a spherical shell, extending classical models and proposing an ultra-small electron radius.

Findings

Reproduces known solutions from Arnowitt, Deser, and Misner (1960)

Proposes a new solution with a vanishingly small electron radius of 10^-55 cm

Highlights differences in gravitational self-energy calculations within Newtonian gravity

Abstract

According to Einstein's mass-energy equivalence, a body with a given mass extending in a large region of space, will get a smaller mass when confined into a smaller region, because of its own gravitational energy. The classical self-energy problem has been studied in the past in connection with the renormalization of a charged point particle. Still exact consistent solutions have not been thoroughly discussed in the simpler framework of Newtonian gravity. Here we exploit a spherical symmetrical shell model and find two possible solutions, depending on some additional assumption. The first solution goes back to Arnowitt, Deser and Misner (1960). The second is new and yields a new vanishingly small value (10^-55 cm) for the classical electron radius.