Induced Current Due to Electromagnetic Shock Produced by Charge Impact on a Conducting Surface

TL;DR

This paper compares the transient electromagnetic shock-induced current with classical models, finding shock effects negligible at low energies but significant at mildly relativistic impacts, with implications discussed.

Contribution

It introduces a comparison between shock-induced and classical induced currents, highlighting the significance of shock effects at higher impact energies.

Findings

Shock-induced current is negligible at nonrelativistic energies.

Shock effects become more significant at mildly relativistic energies.

Classical Ramo-Shockley current remains a good approximation at low energies.

Abstract

This paper compares the transient induced current due to the electromagnetic shock produced by a charged particle impacting a perfectly conducting plate, with the classical, quasi-static induced current of Ramo and Shockley (RS). We consider the simple model of a line charge, removed upon striking the plate. We find that the induced current due to the shock is negligible compared with the RS current for nonrelativistic impact energies, but is more significant as the impact energy becomes mildly relativistic. The implications of these findings are discussed.