Probing global aspects of a geometry by the self-force on a charge; cylindical thin-shell wormholes

Abstract

We obtain the self-interaction for a point charge in the space-time of a cylindrical thin-shell wormhole connecting two identical locally flat geometries with a constant deficit angle. Although this wormhole geometry is locally indistinguishable from a cosmic string background, the corresponding self-forces are different even at the qualitative level. In fact in the cosmic string geometry the force is always repulsive while for the wormhole background we find that the force may point outwards or towards the wormhole throat depending on the parameters of the configuration. These results suggest that the study of the electromagnetic fields of charged particles is a useful tool for testing the global properties of a given background.