Motions and world-line deviations in Einstein-Maxwell theory

Abstract

We examine the motion of charged particles in gravitational and electro-magnetic background fields. We study in particular the deviation of world lines, describing the relative acceleration between particles on different space-time trajectories. Two special cases of background fields are considered in detail: (a) pp-waves, a combination of gravitational and electro-magnetic polarized plane waves travelling in the same direction; (b) the Reissner-Nordstrøm solution. We perform a non-trivial check by computing the precession of the periastron for a charged particle in the Reissner-Nordstrøm geometry both directly by solving the geodesic equation, and using the world-line deviation equation. The results agree to the order of approximation considered.