arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Tamás Matolcsi.
The contradiction of micro-reversibility and macro-irreversibility is an old problem in statistical mechanics. This article argues that irreversibility is present even at the micro level because of the mechanical-electromagnetic interaction, so there may actually be no contradiction.
The problem of the `infinite energy' of a point charge is well known in connection with the Lorentz--Abraham--Dirac equation and, more significantly, in quantum electrodynamics. Though it is not stated usually, this is strongly related to the old problem of what the electromagnetic energy-momentum tensor is. Electromagnetic energies and forces will be examined thoroughly from a new point of view in the framework of Distribution Theory.
We show that the antisymmetric spinor tensor representation of spin-0 relativistic quantum mechanics provides a conserved current with positive definite timelike component, interpretable as probability density. The construction runs in complete analogy to the spin-1/2 case, and provides an analogously natural one-particle Hilbert space description for spin 0. Except for the free particle, the obtained formulation proves to be inequivalent to the one based on the Klein--Gordon equation. The second quantized version may lead to new field theoretical interaction terms for zero-spin particles.
We take the viewpoint that the physically acceptable solutions of the Lorentz--Dirac equation for radiation back-reaction are actually determined by a second order equation of motion, the self-force being given as a function of spacetime location and velocity. We propose three different methods to obtain this self-force function. For two example systems, we determine the second order equation of motion exactly in the nonrelativistic regime via each of these three methods, the three methods leading to the same result. We reveal that, for both systems considered, back-reaction induces a damping proportional to velocity and, in addition, it decreases the effect of the external force.