Living Rev. Relativity, 14, (2011), 7 LIVINGREVIEWS http://www.livingreviews.org/lrr-2011-7 (Update of lrr-2004-6) in relativity The Motion of Point Particles in Curved Spacetime Eric Poisson Department of Physics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1 email:
[email protected] http://www.physics.uoguelph.ca/ Adam Pound Department of Physics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1 email:
[email protected] Ian Vega Department of Physics, University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1G 2W1 email:
[email protected] Accepted on 23 August 2011 Published on 29 September 2011 Abstract This review is concerned with the motion of a point scalar charge, a point electric charge, and a point mass in a specified background spacetime. In each of the three cases the particle produces a field that behaves as outgoing radiation in the wave zone, and therefore removes energy from the particle. In the near zone the field acts on the particle and gives rise toa self-force that prevents the particle from moving on a geodesic of the background spacetime. The self-force contains both conservative and dissipative terms, and the latter are responsible for the radiation reaction. The work done by the self-force matches the energy radiated away by the particle. The field’s action on the particle is difficult to calculate because of its singular nature:the field diverges at the position of the particle. But it is possible to isolate the field’s singular part and show that it exerts no force on the particle { its only effect is to contribute to the particle's inertia.