The relativistic dynamics of the combined particle-field system in renormalized classical electrodynamics

This paper develops a general theory for the nonlinear, renormalized interaction between charged particles and electromagnetic fields. For the combined "particle + field" system, a fundamental relativistically invariant dynamical equation is derived from first principles. This theory was first obtained in an alternative way by one of us (J.K.) in an earlier paper. Here, we prove that the initial-value problem for the "particle + field" system is well-posed. The existence and uniqueness result is based on a careful analysis of the singularites of the electromagnetic field along the trajectory of the moving charged particle. Furthermore, the Banach fixed-point principle is used. The theory improves the classical Dirac theory for the motion of electrons. In particular, it is shown how to deal with the Dirac paradox of runaway solutions.