Stable Charged Bodies from Continuous Electromagnetic Fields

This poster presents a discussion of the mass and properties of charged bodies without invoking strong forces, the Dirac equation, point particles, extra dimensions, or probability densities. Electrodynamics is formulated here as a field theory rather than as a particle and field theory. Electromagnetic fields are taken to be continuous everywhere. Maxwell’s equations are assumed to be valid always, and second order calculus of variations is used to obtain fundamental equations from a covariant action in which the usual term involving particle mass m has been replaced by a term involving an integral over the covariant mass density µ associated with the fields. These equations yield (1) a covariant equation of motion for a charged body’s center of inertia, provided the momentum of the system balances; (2) a mass partitioned into an interaction mass described (as usual) by the Dirac or Schrodinger equation, an intrinsic mass co-located with the body’s charge, and an extrinsic (dark) mass (obeying Maxwell’s equations) outside the charged region; and (3) equations describing charged bodies stabilized by electromagnetic self-fields.