The classical electromagnetic friction of a charged particle, moving with prescribed constant velocity $\mathbf{v}$ parallel to a planar imperfectly conducting surface, is reinvestigated. As a concrete example, the Drude model is used to describe the conductor. The transverse electric and transverse magnetic contributions have very different characters both in the low-velocity (nonrelativistic) and high-velocity (ultrarelativistic) regimes. Both numerical and analytical results are given. Most remarkably, the transverse magnetic contribution to the friction has a maximum for $\left|\mathbf{v}\right|<c$, and persists in the limit of vanishing resistivity for sufficiently high velocities. We also show how Vavilov-Čerenkov radiation can be treated in the same formalism.

• Received 14 November 2019
• Accepted 30 March 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.2.023114

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society