6.4 The evolution of the Bondi energy-momentum
Finally, to obtain the equations of motion, we substitute the kinematic expression for
into the
Bondi evolution equation, the Bianchi identity, Eq. (2.52);
or its much more useful and attractive (real) form
Upon extracting the
harmonic portion of Eq. (6.51) as well as inserting our various physical
identifications for the objects involved, we obtain the Bondi mass loss theorem:
This mass/energy loss equation contains the classical energy loss due to electric and magnetic dipole
radiation and electric and magnetic quadrupole (
) radiation. (Note that agreement with the
physical quadrupole radiation is recovered after making the aforementioned rescaling
.) The
gravitational energy loss is the conventional quadrupole loss by the identification (6.36) of
with the
gravitational quadrupole moment
.
The momentum loss equation, from the
part of Eq. (6.51), is then identified with the recoil force
due to momentum radiation:
where
Finally, we can substitute in the
from Eq. (6.49) to obtain Newton’s second law of motion:
with
Physical Content
There are several things to observe and comment on concerning Eqs. (6.54) and (6.55):
- If the complex world line associated with the Maxwell center of charge coincides with the complex
center of mass, i.e., if
, the term
becomes the classical electrodynamic radiation reaction force.
- This result follows directly from the Einstein–Maxwell equations. There was no model building other
than requiring that the two complex world lines coincide. Furthermore, there was no mass
renormalization; the mass was simply the conventional Bondi mass as seen at infinity. The problem of
the runaway solutions, though not solved here, is converted to the stability of the Einstein–Maxwell
equations with the ‘coinciding’ condition on the two world lines. If the two world lines do not coincide,
i.e., the Maxwell world line forms independent data, then there is no problem of unstable behavior.
This suggests a resolution to the problem of the unstable solutions: one should treat the
source as a structured object, not a point, and centers of mass and charge as independent
quantities.
- The
is the recoil force from momentum radiation.
- The
can be interpreted as the gravitational radiation reaction.
- The first term in
, i.e.,
, is identical to a term in the classical Lorentz–Dirac equations
of motion. Again it is nice to see it appearing, but with the use of the mass loss equation it is in
reality third order.