ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses radiation by a uniformly accelerated particle, and by one which undergoes a sudden change in velocity, an impulse. Although it might appear that these two extreme situations are rather unrelated, particularly in the problems, the considerations for radiation are closely connected. The chapter examines the characteristics of the radiation by assuming that the particle is nonrelativistic (which remains valid only for a finite length of time). Actually there is no logical contradiction, because a constant power radiated would appear to correspond to a power spectrum which consists only of zero frequency, which, to reiterate, does not represent radiation. The essential point to recognize is that uniform acceleration for all time is an idealization of the realistic situation in which uniform acceleration is only experienced for a finite time interval. The chapter considers the acceleration of a charged particle by a linear accelerator and discusses spectral distribution of energy radiated by accelerator, and radiation by impulsive scattering.
