Paper 4, Section II, C
Write down the expression for the momentum of a particle of rest mass , moving with velocity where is near the speed of light . Write down the corresponding 4-momentum.
Such a particle experiences a force . Why is the following expression for the particle's acceleration,
not generally correct? Show that the force can be written as follows
Invert this expression to find the particle's acceleration as the sum of two vectors, one parallel to and one parallel to .
A particle with rest mass and charge is in the presence of a constant electric field which exerts a force on the particle. If the particle is at rest at , its motion will be in the direction of for . Determine the particle's speed for . How does the velocity behave as ?
[Hint: You may find that trigonometric substitution is helpful in evaluating an integral.]