Wheeler-Feynman Absorbers on the Light Horizon

TL;DR

This paper proposes that virtual absorption sites on the future light horizon act as Wheeler-Feynman absorbers, enabling advanced electromagnetic waves and addressing cosmological constraints on absorber theories.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of virtual absorption sites on the light horizon as a mechanism for Wheeler-Feynman absorber theories, expanding their applicability to various cosmologies.

Findings

Virtual absorption sites exist at every point in spacetime.

These sites can remove electromagnetic energy and generate advanced signals.

They are characterized by the Fresnel-Kirchhoff diffraction integral.

Abstract

Early Wheeler-Feynman absorber theories invoke both retarded and advanced electromagnetic waves for photon emission and absorption in order to remove problems involving lack of radiative damping during electron acceleration. Subsequent inquiries have suggested that only certain cosmologies would allow such a retarded-advanced wave mechanism to exist. These include quasi-steady state cosmologies and exclude flat, expanding Friedman-type cosmologies. Key to the exclusion process is a diminishing density of future absorbers in an ever-expanding universe. Such absorbers would be expected to be real electromagnetically interacting particles. However future virtual absorber sites, if they exist, would not be so diminished. Such sites would be plentiful on the future light horizon, receding from the source at the speed of light. The present treatment proposes that virtual absorption sites are present at every point in spacetime, and are characterized by the Fresnel-Kirchhoff diffraction integral. On the future light horizon, they can remove electromagnetic energy from the local causal domain and provide advance wave signals as Wheeler-Feynman absorbers.