Radiative corrections in symmetrized classical electrodynamics

Asymptotics of physical solutions to the Lorentz-Dirac equation for planar motion in constant electromagnetic fields

We present a study of planar physical solutions to the Lorentz-Dirac equation in a constant electromagnetic field. In this case, we reduced the Lorentz-Dirac equation to one second-order differential equation. We obtained the asymptotics of physical solutions to this equation at large proper times. It turns out that, in a crossed constant uniform electromagnetic field with vanishing invariants, a charged particle enters a universal regime at large times. We found that the ratios of momentum components that tend to constants are determined only by the external field. This effect is essentially due to a radiation reaction. There is no such effect for the Lorentz equation in this field.

Classical theory of Compton scattering: assessing the validity of the Dirac-Lorentz equation

The Dirac-Lorentz equation describes the dynamics of a classical point charge in an electromagnetic field, accounting for radiative effects in a manifestly covariant and gauge-invariant manner. The validity of this equation is assessed by direct comparison between the Dirac-Lorentz dynamics of an electron subjected to a plane wave in vacuum and the well-known recoil associated with Compton scattering. In the small recoil limit, the classical Dirac-Lorentz is shown to yield the correct momentum transfer. For larger values of the recoil, the quantum scale appears explicitly, and the classical Dirac-Lorentz equation does not properly model this situation, as shown by deriving an exact analytical solution for a monochromatic plane wave of wave number k0 to any order in k0r0, where r0 is the classical electron radius.