arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Joel Franklin.
Contrary to widespread belief, magnetostatic field lines do not ordinarily form closed loops. Why, then, are they in fact closed for so many familiar examples? What other topologies are possible, and what current configurations generate them?
The purpose of this note is to introduce the CUBE, a virtual reality immersion that was developed to help visualize electromagnetic fields, particularly the less familiar radiation fields students typically encounter in upper level physics courses. We discuss the pedagogical motivation for different features found in the software, and provide a brief overview of its use.
A scalar theory of gravity extending Newtonian gravity to include field energy as its source is developed. The physical implications of the theory are probed through its spherically symmetric (source) solutions. The aim is to demonstrate rational physical model building, together with physical and experimental checks of correctness. The theory discussed here was originally considered by Einstein prior to his introduction of general relativity.
A particle in hyperbolic motion produces electric fields that appear to terminate in mid-air, violating Gauss's law. The resolution to this paradox has been known for sixty years, but exactly why the naive approach fails is not so clear.
We describe progress evolving an important limit of binary orbits in general relativity, that of a stellar mass compact object gradually spiraling into a much larger, massive black hole. These systems are of great interest for gravitational wave observations. We have developed tools to compute for the first time the radiated fluxes of energy and angular momentum, as well as instantaneous snapshot waveforms, for generic geodesic orbits. For special classes of orbits, we compute the orbital evolution and waveforms for the complete inspiral by imposing global conservation of energy and angular momentum. For fully generic orbits, inspirals and waveforms can be obtained by augmenting our approach with a prescription for the self force in the adiabatic limit derived by Mino. The resulting waveforms should be sufficiently accurate to be used in future gravitational-wave searches.