Power radiated by several charges and the Larmor Formula

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SUMMARY

The Larmor Formula accurately calculates the power radiated by a single charged particle under acceleration, but it fails in scenarios involving multiple charged particles. Specifically, when two charged particles, such as electrons, experience equal and opposite forces while at rest relative to each other, their radiated electric fields can cancel out, resulting in no net radiated power. This indicates that the Larmor Formula is not applicable for systems with multiple interacting charges or point particles, as the assumptions underlying the Poynting theorem do not hold in these cases.

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  • Understanding of the Larmor Formula and its application in electromagnetism.
  • Familiarity with the Poynting theorem and its assumptions.
  • Knowledge of electric field calculations from charged particles.
  • Basic concepts of particle interactions and forces in physics.
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Physicists, electrical engineers, and students studying electromagnetism who are interested in understanding the limitations of the Larmor Formula and the behavior of radiated power in systems with multiple charged particles.

USeptim
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Hello,

The Larmor Formula tells how much power radiates a particle under the effect of acceleration if it's lonely on the space and it's often used to calculate radiative losses. However, I have seen some situations where the total radiated power cannot be obtained as the sum of Larmor formula over the charges.Let's consider this simple scenerio: we have only two charged particles (A and B) in the universe, both with the same charge (electrons). In some time to they have no relative velocity one another and are separated a distance D in the x axis.In that time both particles are suffering the same force but with opposite direction F_C = -F_D.Since v=0, the radiated electric field will is:

<b>E</b> = (q/c)*(<b>n</b> x (<b>n</b> x <b>a</b> ) ) / ( [1 - n · v/c ]^3*R^2)Where n is the unitary vector: n = R / R, a is the acceleration and R the distance from the charge to the point.Since the accelerations are the opposite, in a point P in the far distance R, where R >>> D, we can consider <b>R_AP</b> = <b>R_BP[</b>/itex] and therefore the electric field contributions from both particles will cancel one another given a null radiated power.Of course, if we see the field at distance R from A at time to + R/c the contribution of B will not be from to but from to - &lt;b&gt;n&lt;/b&gt;_&lt;b&gt;x&lt;/b&gt;*D/c so the speed of <b>B</b> will not be exactly zero and the radiated field will not exactly cancel but we can neglect this little difference.<br /> <br /> This makes me to think that Larmor formula is not usefull to describe the radiated power in all the situations. Does anybody see any mistake in these statements?<br /> <br /> Sergio
 
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Your conclusion is correct. The Larmor formula is valid only for isolated particle with spatially extended charge distribution. If particle is a point, Larmor's formula is invalid (the assumptions of the Poynting theorem it is based on do not hold). If there are several independently moving charged particles contributing to the total field, the Larmor formula is not valid either (interference of the fields).
 
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Thanks Jano L. That was what I was suspecting.
 

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