Radiation reaction on a charged particle

Abstract

The radiation reaction on a charged particle in a constant magnetic field is computed in a direct way using the methods of non-equilibrium statistical mechanics namely the subdynamics theory developed in Brussels (Prigogine et al. 1973; Balescu, 1975) associated with a statistical description of the transverse field (Balescu et al. 1974). A dynamical criteria is used such that the virtual (self-energy) processes no longer appear explicitly in the kinetic equation describing the distribution function associated with the particle (de Haan, 2004 [1], [2]). That irreversible kinetic equation is then derived in a straightforward way. The response of the charged particle to its own electromagnetic field is then deduced and provides an exponential decay of its transverse momentum with respect to the magnetic field. The usual form for the reactive force is thus recovered in a framework that enables its generalisation.