I have studied in my Physics course that one of the drawbacks of Rutherford's atomic model was that when an electron will revolve around the nucleus, it is undergoing acceleration and so it should radiate energy and consequentially fall into the nucleus.
Similarly when a charged particle is projected in the plane perpendicular to a uniform magnetic field it executes uniform circular motion withradius $r=mv/qB$.
My question is why isn't the charged particle radiating energy here? Even in this case the charged particle is accelerating, just as it was in Rutherford's model of the atom. So shouldn't the radius decrease in this case also?
Best Answer
A charged particle circulating in a magnetic field does radiate energy, and it is called synchrotron radiation. All circular particle accelerators have energy losses due to this radiation.