Gedanken experiment to test Bell's spaceship paradox

TL;DR

This paper explores a modified Bell's spaceship paradox where small acceleration fluctuations lead to a new stable configuration, allowing ships to maintain constant distance and accelerate indefinitely without breaking the string.

Contribution

It introduces a thought experiment analyzing the effects of acceleration fluctuations on Bell's spaceship paradox, revealing a new stable motion regime.

Findings

Ships maintain constant proper distance with small acceleration fluctuations.

Ships can accelerate indefinitely without breaking the string.

Relativistic effects lead to stable configurations under non-lockstep acceleration.

Abstract

In Bell's spaceship paradox, a thread connects two spaceships moving with identical accelerations. As the ships accelerate in lockstep, the tension in the string increases due to the relativistic contraction and the string eventually breaks. What happens if instead of exactly matched accelerations, the changing tension in the string introduces small fluctuations that disrupt the lockstep acceleration? This relaxation of the requirement of lockstep acceleration dramatically changes the motion of the two ships. At a surprisingly small velocity, the two ships begin to move in a manner that maintains a constant proper distance between them. This allows the ships to accelerate indefinitely without breaking the string.