Understanding an electron's emission of electromagnetic waves

[Marvin94]

Hi to everybody ! I was thinking about something which confuses me about wave emission.
The question is simply the following:
Does an electron emit light when it accelerate? or just during its deceleration? or maybe when acceleration and deceleration alternates in some order? I'm not really sure, so thanks a lot in advance for your help!

 

[hilbert2]

But doesn't acceleration look like deceleration in some other inertial frame? The emission of photons can't depend on that, only the wavelength and direction of the emitted photons does.

 

[Marvin94]

Hm, ok I'm more confused. Can you change the fact that V1 > V0 remaining in the same inertial frame ?

 

[ZapperZ]

Hi to everybody ! I was thinking about something which confuses me about wave emission.
The question is simply the following:
Does an electron emit light when it accelerate? or just during its deceleration? or maybe when acceleration and deceleration alternates in some order? I'm not really sure, so thanks a lot in advance for your help!

Is a particle moving around in a circle accelerating? If yes, then look up cyclotron radiation.

I can also jiggle a bunch of electrons up and down, as if they are at the end of a spring. Is this both accelerating and decelerating? Yet, this is more than just a silly analogy, because many light sources around the world generate light when relativistic electron bunches passes through a series of wigglers or undulators that cause them to move just that and generate everything from IR to UV to x-ray to hard x-ray. FEL works on such a principle.

Zz.

 

[Meir Achuz]

"Does an electron emit light when it accelerate?"
The simple correct answer is YES.