When a charged particle is accelerated by a field, it would seem there are many possible photons that could be emitted to obey conservation of momentum. Is it random, or time-dependent, or based on the magnitude of the acceleration?
1 Answer
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Depends on the circumstances under which a particle is accelerated.
For instance, bremsstrahlung radiation occurs when a charged particle slows down on another charged particle (e.g., electrons driven into a target to generate X-rays). In this case, the radiation is a continuum and depends on the amount of energy a given particle loses to the interacting medium (there is a high-energy limit).
Synchrotron radiation, which occurs when charged particles undergo Larmor motion under the influence of a magnetic field, causes emission of photons at the angular frequency and its harmonics.
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1$\begingroup$ there are spectra for brehmsstrahlung en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brehmstrahlung ands synchrotron in en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synchrotron_radiation $\endgroup$– anna vCommented Jul 18, 2014 at 5:13