Reduced-order Abraham-Lorentz-Dirac equation and the consistency of classical electromagnetism

Abstract

It is widely believed that classical electromagnetism is either unphysical or inconsistent, owing to pathological behavior when self-force and radiation reaction are non-negligible. We argue that there is no inconsistency as long as it is recognized that certain types of charge distribution are simply impossible, such as, for example, a point particle with finite charge and finite inertia. This is owing to the fact that negative inertial mass is an unphysical concept in classical physics. It remains useful to obtain an equation of motion for small charged objects that describes their motion to good approximation without requiring knowledge of the charge distribution within the object. We give a simple method to achieve this, leading to a reduced-order form of the Abraham-Lorentz-Dirac equation, essentially as proposed by Eliezer, Landau, and Lifshitz and derived by Ford and O'Connell.