# Self-force and the Huygens principle

## TL;DR

This paper explores the relationship between the Huygens Principle and self-force in gravity, revealing that electromagnetic fields can obey the HP even when potentials do not, affecting self-interaction behavior.

## Contribution

It demonstrates that electromagnetic fields obey the Huygens Principle in plane gravitational wave space-time despite potentials not obeying it, impacting understanding of self-force.

## Key findings

- Self-force for electric particles has no tail term in this context.
- Electromagnetic fields obey the Huygens Principle even when potentials do not.
- The vector Green function does not obey the Huygens Principle.

## Abstract

We consider a relation between the Huygens Principle (HP) in gravity and the self-interaction force. We show that the self-force for an electric particle in the plane gravitational wave space-time has no tail term even the vector Green function does not obey the HP. The reason for this observation is that even vector potential does not obey the HP, the electromagnetic field does obey.