Some past, present and future works on self-force

Speaker 

Karl Davidson, MSc Candidate

Abstract 

The self-force, sometimes referred to as the radiation reaction force is an effect created by an object’s own force field that alters the path it travels. The self-force was initially derived in the early 1900s as an electromagnetic effect resulting from an electric charge experiencing a jerk. Since then, physicists have extended the self-force to special and general relativity and to the now thriving research topic of gravitational self-force. In this talk, I will discuss a bit of the history of the self-force, followed by some of my own research on the electromagnetic self-force in curved spacetimes. I will conclude with a discussion on the future of self-force research and how it will become experimentally applicable in the advent of the LISA space based gravitational wave detector.

Further Details

Coffee and donuts will be provided. Make sure to follow the Graduate Seminar Series on Facebook(External Link).