Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-symmetry-and-relativity-course-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019/1/e/solution

For causal reachability on a spatial circle, put and use a representative of the spatial circle. The lower-left panel of part c is a fundamental strip with its vertical edges identified. On the covering space the charged world line is still the solution of part b; on the quotient it is
A jump between opposite strip edges is a coordinate seam, not a discontinuity of the physical world line. At its th complete lap, , so
For , the speed increases on each return while remaining below . Its kinetic energy increases by
There is no single-valued electrostatic potential energy on a circle: the nonzero electromotive force is . A globally defined magnetic vector potential one-form instead makes the driving explicit. In an embedded circuit, Faraday's law realizes this electromotive force through changing magnetic flux. More generally an external apparatus maintaining the field supplies the increasing particle energy. In an isolated dynamical field-plus-particle system, backreaction would change the field. Thus this is not a cyclic machine extracting work from a conservative potential, and it does not violate conservation of energy.

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