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A soft-photon theorem for the Maxwell-Lorentz system

Mathematical Physics 2021-04-23 v1 High Energy Physics - Theory Analysis of PDEs math.MP

Abstract

For the coupled system of classical Maxwell-Lorentz equations we show that the quantities \begin{equation*} \mathfrak{F}(\hat x, t)=\lim_{|x|\to \infty} |x|^2 F(x,t), \quad \mathcal{F}(\hat k, t)=\lim_{|k|\to 0} |k| \widehat{F}(k,t), \end{equation*} where FF is the Faraday tensor, F^\hat{F} its Fourier transform in space and x^:=xx\hat{x}:=\frac{x}{|x|}, are independent of tt. We combine this observation with the scattering theory for the Maxwell-Lorentz system due to Komech and Spohn, which gives the asymptotic decoupling of FF into the scattered radiation Fsc,±F_{\mathrm{sc},\pm} and the soliton field Fv±F_{v_{\pm\infty}} depending on the asymptotic velocity v±v_{\pm\infty} of the electron at large positive (+), resp. negative (-) times. This gives a soft-photon theorem of the form \begin{equation*} \mathcal{F}_{\text{sc},+}(\hat{k}) - \mathcal{F}_{\text{sc},-}(\hat{k})= -( \mathcal{F}_{v_{+\infty}}(\hat{k})-\mathcal{F}_{v_{-\infty}}(\hat{k})), \end{equation*} and analogously for F\mathfrak{F}, which links the low-frequency part of the scattered radiation to the change of the electron's velocity. Implications for the infrared problem in QED are discussed in the Conclusions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1908.02615,
  title  = {A soft-photon theorem for the Maxwell-Lorentz system},
  author = {Wojciech Dybalski and Duc Viet Hoang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1908.02615},
  year   = {2021}
}

Comments

16 pages

R2 v1 2026-06-23T10:42:03.123Z