Covariant Worldline Numerics for Charge Motion with Radiation Reaction

Understand

We develop a numerical formulation to calculate the classical motion of charges in strong electromagnetic fields, such as those occurring in high-intensity laser beams.

• By reformulating the dynamics in terms of SL(2,C) matrices representing the Lorentz group, our formulation maintains explicit covariance, in particular the mass-shell condition.
• Considering an electromagnetic plane wave field where the analytic solution is known as a test case, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the method for solving both the Lorentz force and the Landau-Lifshitz equations.
• The latter, a second order reduction of the Lorentz-Abraham-Dirac equation, describes radiation reaction without the usual pathologies.