Acceleration beyond the wave speed in dissipative wave-particle systems

Ines M. Hübler Department of General Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801 (Dated: November 28, 2004) Abstract When an isotropic object is accelerated by plane waves, its limiting speed is less or equal to the wave speed. We study the acceleration of anisotropic objects in classical wave-particle systems. We investigate objects with anisotropic mass distributions subject to anisotropic friction forces. We find that anisotropic objects can be trapped by the waves, and reach a limiting speed that is larger than the wave speed. We discuss particle accelerator applications.