Light emission by accelerated electric, toroidal and anapole dipolar sources

TL;DR

This paper investigates electromagnetic emission from accelerated electric, toroidal, and anapole dipole sources, revealing how light ellipticity distinguishes sources and that non-radiating configurations can emit under acceleration, opening new research avenues.

Contribution

It demonstrates that anapoles can emit light under uniform acceleration and identifies a loophole in the inverse source problem, advancing understanding of electromagnetic responses under acceleration.

Findings

Ellipticity of emitted light differentiates electric and toroidal dipole sources.

Anapoles can emit light when uniformly accelerated.

A loophole exists in the inverse source problem, affecting source identification.

Abstract

Emission of electromagnetic radiation by accelerated particles with electric, toroidal and anapole dipole moments is analyzed. It is shown that ellipticity of the emitted light can be used to differentiate between electric and toroidal dipole sources, and that anapoles, elementary neutral non-radiating configurations, which consist of electric and toroidal dipoles, can emit light under uniform acceleration. The existence of non-radiating configurations in electrodynamics implies that it is impossible to fully determine the internal makeup of the emitter given only the distribution of the emitted light. Here we demonstrate that there is a loop-hole in this `inverse source problem'. Our results imply that there may be a whole range of new phenomena to be discovered by studying the electromagnetic response of matter under acceleration.