Moving point charge as a soliton in nonlinear electrodynamics

Abstract

The field of a moving pointlike charge is determined in nonlinear local electrodynamics. As a model Lagrangian for the latter we take the one whose nonlinearity is the Euler-Heisenberg Lagrangian of quantum electrodynamics truncated at the leading term of its expansion in powers of the first field invariant. The total energy of the field produced by a point charge is finite in that model; thereby its field configuration is a soliton. We define a finite energy-momentum vector of this field configuration to demonstrate that its components satisfy the standard mechanical relation characteristic of a free moving massive particle.