Undergrad Acceleration at 1g in space -- Does it create a gravitational field?

[BigyanAdhikari]

Does a body accelerating at 1g in outer space create a gravitational field around it ?

 

[Vanadium 50]

Why wouldn't it? And what is special about 1g?

 

[Nugatory]

Does a body accelerating at 1g in outer space create a gravitational field around it ?

Presumably the body has some mass, and every mass has a gravitational field, so yes. We can plug the mass into Newton's gravitational law $F=Gm_1m_2/r^2$ to see the effect of its gravitational field.

You posted this in the classical physics forum and as far as classica physics is concerned it is irrelevant that the body is accelerating - its mass is what it is, and that's what determines the gravitational field. If we were also considering relativistic effects we would have to make a small correction for the effects of the energy doing the accelerating, but in practice these effects are negligibly small.

 

[jbriggs444]

Does a body accelerating at 1g in outer space create a gravitational field around it ?

If we choose to treat the accelerating body as being at rest and adopt an accelerating frame of reference in which it is at rest, the result is (locally) indistinguishable from a gravitational field. That is the equivalence principle.

However, this is not a physical effect. It is simply the result of choosing to use coordinates that are accelerating rather than inertial. The coordinates we use to describe a thing have no effect on that thing. With that in mind, I would say that no, accelerating a body does not create a gravitational field.