Classical Radiation Recoil

Abstract

The conditions under which a material system may recoil while emitting electromagnetic or gravitational radiation are investigated. The lowest order secular effects in the electromagnetic case arise from an interference of the electric dipole radiation with the electric quadrupole or magnetic dipole radiations. In the gravitational case, the lowest order terms involve the interference of the mass quadrupole radiation with the mass octopole or the flow quadrupole radiations. The investigation of the gravitational radiation recoil is carried out in complete analogy with the more elementary electromagnetic case, so that this paper should be accessible to physicists having no previous knowledge of general relativity theory.