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CONCLUSION

The subject of this article is the physics of accelerated frames. The theme is: ``How does one observe and measure the properties of violently accelerated bodies?'' Answering this question has led to three results.

First of all, suppose one considers the transmission of e.m. signals from a translationally accelerated transmitter to a receiver in an inertial frame. One finds that the signals can be transmitted without any time dependent Doppler distortion and with 100% fidelity provided the signals are received in an inertial frame which is expanding. A static inertial frame would not do.

Second, Larmor's radiation formula for the radiation intensity from a dipole source gets augmented if that dipole is subjected to linear uniform acceleration. Under this circumstance the total radiation is the sum of the magnetic and electric dipole radiation,

\begin{displaymath}
{\mathcal I}_{total}=
(\pm)~\frac{\xi'^2}{\xi^2} \left\{
\...
...^2}\left(\frac{d \textbf{m}}{dt'}\right)^2 \right]
\right\}~.
\end{displaymath} (77)

The amount of that augmentation becomes dominant when the acceleration is so large that its ``Fermi-Walker'' length ($\xi'=c^2$/acceleration) is smaller than the wavelength of the emitted radiation, or equivalently, when Eq.(72) is fulfilled.

Finally, taking note of the fact that for every source accelerated to the right there is a twin source accelerated to the left, suppose these two sources are irradiated coherently. Then these twins together with their concomitant expanding inertial reference frame form an interferometer. More precisely, the four Rindler coordinatized sectors form an interferometer, the Rindler interferometer. Its geometrical arena consists of the Rindler sectors $P\rightarrow(I,II)\rightarrow
F$ as exhibited in Figure 1. They accommodate what in Euclidean space would be the components of an optical interferometer with (i) $P$ serving as the beam splitter, (ii) the spacetimes of the two accelerated frames $I$ and $II$ serving as the two arms, and (iii) the spacetime $F$ serving as the beam re-combiner. The interference pattern is recorded by the expanding inertial frame in $F$.


next up previous
Next: ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Up: RADIATION FROM VIOLENTLY ACCELERATED Previous: UNIFYING PERSPECTIVE
Ulrich Gerlach 2001-10-09