Universal Self Force from an Extended-Object Approach

Abstract

We present a consistent extended-object approach for determining the self force acting on an accelerating charged particle. In this approach one considers an extended charged object of finite size $\epsilon$, and calculates the overall contribution of the mutual electromagnetic forces. Previous implementations of this approach yielded divergent terms $\propto 1/\epsilon$ that could not be cured by mass-renormalization. Here we explain the origin of this problem and fix it. We obtain a consistent, universal, expression for the extended-object self force, which conforms with Dirac's well known formula.Comment: Latex, one postscript figure, 4 page