Four-acceleration
(4-acceleration) is a four-vector, considered as relativistic generalization of
the classical three-dimensional acceleration vector for the four-dimensional
spacetime. Any physical system, whether a point material particle or a
connected set of particles, has its own four-acceleration. Inside a body with
continuous matter distribution, as a rule, there are gradients of velocities of
motion of typical particles of this matter. As a result, the four-acceleration
of typical particles inside bodies, averaged over the volume with the sizes of
such particles, is a certain function of coordinates and time, leading to
internal stresses in the matter.
Содержание
Definition
In the
general case, the four-acceleration of a particle is defined as the derivative
of the four-velocity with respect to the particle’s proper
time
:
In the above
expression, the operator of proper-time-derivative is used, which generalizes the material
derivative to the curved spacetime, [1] and the quantities
represent the
Christoffel symbols.
The metric
tensor is needed to determine the four-acceleration
with a covariant index:
Single particle
The motion of solid-state point
physical particles, as well as of physical systems consisting of a set of
particles, moving as a single whole, is described with the help of the
four-velocity. In this case, the velocity of motion of a particle or the velocity
of the momentum center of a system is directly included into the space
component of the four-velocity.
Sometimes it
is convenient to pass on from the particle’s proper time to the coordinate time
of the reference frame, in which the particle
is moving. Let’s take into account that the four-velocity can be written in the
following form:
where is the instantaneous four-position of the
particle,
is the speed of light,
is the three-vector of the particle’s
position,
is the time component of the
four-velocity,
is the
three-velocity of the particle with the corresponding components.
For the
four-acceleration components the following is then obtained:
In the
inertial reference frame, instantaneously co-moving with the moving particle,
the velocity , the Lorentz factor
, the Christoffel symbols become equal to
zero,
,
and denoting in the given reference frame the proper three-acceleration
as
, we obtain for the four-acceleration the
following:
. Since
in this reference frame the four-velocities with contravariant and covariant
indices coincide,
, then
the scalar product is
. Since
the scalar product of any four-vectors is an invariant, then from the equality
of the scalar product to zero it follows that in any other reference frames the
four-velocity and four-acceleration of a particle are always perpendicular to
each other.
If we assume
that the four-velocity is directed along the world line of the particle, then
the four-acceleration at each point will be perpendicular to this line and
directed in the same way as the curvature vector of the world line.
Application
In case when a certain force field acts on a particle,
the acceleration of the particle will depend on both components of this field,
that is, on the field strength and the corresponding solenoidal vector. Thus,
the electric field strength, magnetic field, charge and velocity of the
particle determine the value of Lorentz force, which accelerates the particle
in electromagnetic field. The same situation takes place in the covariant
theory of gravitation, where there are the gravitational
field strength and the gravitational
torsion field.
For the fields superposition principle holds,
according to which scalar potential of a field at some point is arithmetic sum
of scalar potentials of all the available field sources, and vector potential
at this point is vector sum of vector potentials of the field sources. With the
help of known field potentials it is easy to determine field strength and
corresponding solenoidal field vector, and hence corresponding acceleration of
the particle. For expression of the force in a more general, tensor form, the
concept of four-force is used, which is
proportional to the four-acceleration.
In general relativity, the gravitational force is
reduced to curvature of spacetime and is found through the metric tensor. As a
result, in the absence of other forces, the particle in the gravitational field
moves along the geodesic line, while the four-acceleration of the particle and four-force are equal to
zero. Hence we obtain the geodesic equation as equation of motion of a particle
in a given metric:
Under similar conditions in covariant
theory of gravitation, the gravitational four-acceleration of a particle is
found either through gravitational
tensor or through gravitational
stress-energy tensor
. In
this case the four-acceleration is not equal to zero, as long as there is a
non-zero gravitational force. The equation of motion of a solid particle is the equality
between the four-acceleration of a particle and four-acceleration from
gravitational field:
In the presence of other fields, acting on the
particle, the above equations of motion change. For example, in the presence of
charge of the particle with the mass
, the equation of motion in
general relativity will be as follows: [2]
where is electromagnetic tensor,
is electromagnetic stress-energy tensor,
is the average mass density of the particle
in its proper reference frame.
In matter inside a body, several fields can act
simultaneously on the particle, for example, gravitational and electromagnetic
fields, pressure field, and dissipation
field. In covariant theory of gravitation, gravitational field is considered as
a vector field, just like an electromagnetic field. If we assume that other
fields in macroscopic bodies are described by the vector fields and are the general field components, then equation of
motion of a solid particle in the specified four fields
has the form: [3]
Here is pressure
field tensor,
is dissipation
field tensor,
is pressure
stress-energy tensor, and
is dissipation
stress-energy tensor.
Four-momentum
and four-force
Four-momentum of a particle is determined as the
product of the particle’s invariant inertial mass by the four-velocity:
where is relativistic energy,
is three-vector of the relativistic momentum
of the particle.
In order to calculate the four-force we need to apply
the operator of proper-time-derivative to four-momentum:
If the mass is constant, it can be taken out beyond
the sign of the differential:
In this case, the four-force is proportional to the
mass and four-acceleration. If we determine that is the power as the rate of change of the
particle’s energy, and
is the three-force, written also in
Cartesian coordinates and acting on the particle, then the components of the
four-force will be expressed in terms of the power, the three-force components
and four-acceleration components as follows:
Expression of
four-acceleration in terms of acceleration field
The acceleration field is characterized by its own
four-potential, the acceleration tensor and the acceleration
stress-energy tensor
. The acceleration tensor components are
components of two three-vectors – the field strength
and the solenoidal vector
of acceleration field. For a solid
particle, the four-acceleration with covariant index can be expressed in terms of the
following quantities: [4]
The equality for the four-acceleration with the
right-hand side (3), containing stress-energy tensor of acceleration field,
follows from the principle of least action. The equality for the
four-acceleration with the left-hand side (3) is proved as follows. For a point
solid particle, the four-potential of acceleration field is four-velocity of the
particle with covariant index , and acceleration tensor will equal:
Multiplying this equality by gives the required relation:
In this case, we took into account the equality and its covariant derivative:
With the help of the metric tensor we can pass on to
the four-acceleration with a contravariant index:
After substituting (4) into the right-hand side of (2)
we can see that there is a relationship between the power and the three-force
on the one hand, and the scalar product
and the sum
on the other hand.
In flat spacetime, the Christoffel symbols become
equal to zero, , and
the metric tensor has only the diagonal components that are equal in the
absolute value to 1. In this case we obtain the following:
Thus, the power of work done by an arbitrary force and
the force itself are expressed in terms of the velocity of motion , the strength
and the solenoidal vector
of acceleration field.
The expressions for the vectors and
follow from definition of four-potential and
acceleration tensor:
In the flat spacetime, the scalar potential of the
particle’s acceleration field is , and the vector potential of acceleration
field is
. Finding the vectors
and
with the help of these potentials, and substituting
them into expressions for the power and force, we obtain the following:
The vectors and
are expressed in terms of partial
derivatives, characteristic of the four-vector algebra, and similarly we obtain
the expressions for the power and force. In addition, there are two other
expressions for the force, [2] [1] with the use of
three-acceleration
of the particle:
System of
closely interacting particles
The four-acceleration concept for a sufficiently large
system of particles differs significantly from the four-acceleration of a
single point particle. Multiparticle interactions in the system
result in a new quality, when not the motion of a particular physical particle
becomes important, but the motion of certain typical particles, which
characterize the system under consideration on the average. As a result of
averaging of kinetic energies and momenta of individual particles, such
macroscopic parameters emerge as temperature and pressure. A peculiarity of a
typical particle is that its root mean square speed of motion becomes a function
of location in the system. In simple physical systems consisting of particles
of one phase or having sufficiently uniform composition, the pressure,
temperature and velocity of typical particles at the center of the system usually
reach the maximum value.
In order to describe the motion of a typical particle
the same equations can be used, as for a physical particle, with the difference
that these equations should be averaged. This requires averaging of the field
strengths and solenoidal vectors of all the acting fields over the volume of a
typical particle at its location. In fact, averaging is performed by using
corresponding field equations, while approximation of continuous medium is
often used.
In many cases, dependences of fields
as well as of the mass and charge densities on coordinates and time are known
in the system, but distribution of the particles’ four-velocity is unknown. Then, in the concept of general field and covariant theory of gravitation,
for calculating basic parameters of the system, the expressions presented in
the article equation of vector field may
be required: [5]
1) The equation for calculating the metric:
where is Ricci tensor,
is scalar curvature,
is gravitational
constant,
is a certain constant, and gauge condition of
cosmological constant is used.
2) The acceleration field equations for calculating
the vectors and
as components of acceleration tensor
:
where is mass four-current,
is acceleration field constant.
Sometimes it is easier to use first the wave equation
to calculate the four-potential of acceleration field
and then to apply four-curl to in order to determine
.
3) The equation of motion (1), if
typical particles of the system are considered as solid particles.
4) The gauge condition of four-potential of the
acceleration field and continuity equation for the mass four-current,
respectively:
The connection between metric and four-velocity is also contained in the
invariant:
As it was said, all physical quantities in these
equations should refer to typical particles and therefore should be averaged.
This also applies to Ricci tensor , scalar curvature, and
cosmological constant inside the body. [6]
In items 1) and 2), the vectors and
, necessary to calculate the four-acceleration
in relation (3), are expressed in terms of metric and acceleration field
coefficient
. With the help of item 3) the
coefficient
is expressed in terms of the coefficients of
other fields. In item 4) additional restrictions are imposed on the acceptable
type of functions, including the particles’ velocities and their potentials.
Due to complexity and interdependence of the equations, they often have to be
solved simultaneously.
The situation becomes more complicated in the case
when the system’s typical particles are not solid and have nonzero vector field
potentials. For example, the particles can have the spin and magnetic moment,
leading to the vector potential of acceleration field and to the vector
potential
of electromagnetic field. In this case, the
four-potential of acceleration field
is no longer equal to the particle’s
four-velocity
. Instead of the four-acceleration, the
covariant derivative of stress-energy tensor of accelerated field with mixed
indices defines density of four-force: [7]
From the foregoing we can see that if the
four-velocity in matter is not initially specified, it should be found from the
field equations and then be used to calculate four-acceleration by the formula:
From comparison of (5) and (3) it follows that the four-acceleration
in matter inside a typical particle can be estimated in the first approximation
as follows:
In this expression, the four-acceleration depends on
four-velocity of matter’s motion inside the particle, on
four-potential
of acceleration field as a function of
coordinates inside the particle and on the coordinates of the particle itself
inside the system.
In case of using general relativity instead of
covariant theory of gravitation, the described above order of calculating the
four-acceleration in general remains the same. An exception is that in general
relativity, gravitational force and its contribution into four-acceleration are
included in metric, which changes both the equation for the metric and the
equation of motion.
See also
References
External links
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