Mass loss by a scalar charge in an expanding universe
Abstract
We study the phenomenon of mass loss by a scalar charge -- a point particle that acts a source for a noninteracting scalar field -- in an expanding universe. The charge is placed on comoving world lines of two cosmological spacetimes: a de Sitter universe, and a spatially-flat, matter-dominated universe. In both cases, we find that the particle's rest mass is not a constant, but that it changes in response to the emission of monopole scalar radiation by the particle. In de Sitter spacetime, the particle radiates all of its mass within a finite proper time. In the matter-dominated cosmology, this happens only if the charge of the particle is sufficiently large; for smaller charges the particle first loses some of its mass, but then regains it all eventually.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.gr-qc/0201020,
title = {Mass loss by a scalar charge in an expanding universe},
author = {Lior M. Burko and Abraham I. Harte and Eric Poisson},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:gr-qc/0201020},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
11 pages, RevTeX4, Accepted for Phys. Rev. D