Proper acceleration
In relativity theory, proper acceleration is the physical acceleration experienced by an object. It is thus acceleration relative to a free-fall, or inertial, observer who is momentarily at rest relative to the object being measured. Gravitation therefore does not cause proper acceleration, since gravity acts upon the inertial observer that any proper acceleration must depart from. A corollary is that all inertial observers always have a proper acceleration of zero.
Proper acceleration contrasts with coordinate acceleration, which is dependent on choice of coordinate systems and thus upon choice of observers.
In the standard inertial coordinates of special relativity, for unidirectional motion, proper acceleration is the rate of change of proper velocity with respect to coordinate time.
In an inertial frame in which the object is momentarily at rest, the proper acceleration 3-vector, combined with a zero time-component, yields the object's four-acceleration, which makes proper-acceleration's magnitude Lorentz-invariant. Thus the concept is useful: with accelerated coordinate systems, at relativistic speeds, and in curved spacetime.
In an accelerating rocket after launch, or even in a rocket standing at the gantry, the proper acceleration is the acceleration felt by the occupants, and which is described as g-force delivered by the vehicle only. The "acceleration of gravity" never contributes to proper acceleration in any circumstances, and thus the proper acceleration felt by observers standing on the ground is due to the mechanical force from the ground, not due to the "force" or "acceleration" of gravity. If the ground is removed and the observer allowed to free-fall, the observer will experience coordinate acceleration, but no proper acceleration, and thus no g-force. Generally, objects in such a fall or generally any such ballistic path, including objects in orbit, experience no proper acceleration. This state is also known as "zero gravity" or "free-fall," and it produces a sensation of weightlessness.
Proper acceleration reduces to coordinate acceleration in an inertial coordinate system in flat spacetime, provided the magnitude of the object's proper-velocity is much less than the speed of light c. Only in such situations is coordinate acceleration entirely felt as a g-force.
In situations in which gravitation is absent but the chosen coordinate system is not inertial, but is accelerated with the observer, then g-forces and corresponding proper accelerations felt by observers in these coordinate systems are caused by the mechanical forces which resist their weight in such systems. This weight, in turn, is produced by fictitious forces or "inertial forces" which appear in all such accelerated coordinate systems, in a manner somewhat like the weight produced by the "force of gravity" in systems where objects are fixed in space with regard to the gravitating body.
The total force that is calculated to induce the proper acceleration on a mass at rest in a coordinate system that has a proper acceleration, via Newton's law F = m a, is called the proper force. As seen above, the proper force is equal to the opposing reaction force that is measured as an object's "operational weight". Thus, the proper force on an object is always equal and opposite to its measured weight.
Examples
When holding onto a carousel that turns at constant angular velocity you experience a radially inward proper-acceleration due to the interaction between the handhold and your hand. This cancels the radially outward geometric acceleration associated with your spinning coordinate frame. This outward acceleration will become the coordinate acceleration when you let go, causing you to fly off along a zero proper-acceleration path. Unaccelerated observers, of course, in their frame simply see your equal proper and coordinate accelerations vanish when you let go.From the map frame perspective, what's dangerous is your tangential velocity. From the spin frame perspective, the danger instead may lie with that geometric acceleration.
Similarly, standing on a non-rotating planet we experience an upward proper-acceleration due to the normal force exerted by the earth on the bottom of our shoes. This cancels the downward geometric acceleration due to our choice of coordinate system. That downward acceleration becomes coordinate if we inadvertently step off a cliff into a zero proper-acceleration trajectory.
Note that geometric accelerations act on every ounce of our being, while proper-accelerations are usually caused by an external force. Introductory physics courses often treat gravity's downward acceleration as due to a mass-proportional force. This, along with diligent avoidance of unaccelerated frames, allows them to treat proper and coordinate acceleration as the same thing.
Even then if an object maintains a constant proper-acceleration from rest over an extended period in flat spacetime, observers in the rest frame will see the object's coordinate acceleration decrease as its coordinate velocity approaches lightspeed. The rate at which the object's proper-velocity goes up, nevertheless, remains constant.
Here our object first accelerates upward for a time period of 2*c/α on traveler clocks,
where c is lightspeed and α is the proper acceleration's magnitude. This first leg takes about 2 years if the acceleration's magnitude is about 1-gee. It then accelerates downward over twice that period, followed by a 2*c/α upward deceleration to return to the original height. Note that the coordinate acceleration is significant only during the low-speed segments of this voyage.
Thus the distinction between proper-acceleration and coordinate acceleration allows one to track the experience of accelerated travelers from various non-Newtonian perspectives. These perspectives include those of accelerated coordinate systems, of high speeds, and of curved spacetime.
Classical applications
At low speeds in the inertial coordinate systems of Newtonian physics, proper acceleration simply equals the coordinate acceleration a=d2x/dt2. As reviewed above, however, it differs from coordinate acceleration if one chooses to describe the world from the perspective of an accelerated coordinate system like a motor vehicle accelerating from rest, or a stone being spun around in a slingshot. If one chooses to recognize that gravity is caused by the curvature of spacetime, proper acceleration differs from coordinate acceleration in a gravitational field.For example, an object subjected to physical or proper acceleration ao will be seen by observers in a coordinate system undergoing constant acceleration aframe to have coordinate acceleration:
Thus if the object is accelerating with the frame, observers fixed to the frame will see no acceleration at all.
In this illustration the car accelerates after a stop sign until midway up the block, at which point the driver is immediately off the accelerator and onto the brake so as to make the next stop.
Similarly, an object undergoing physical or proper acceleration ao will be seen by observers in a frame rotating with angular velocity ω to have coordinate acceleration:
In the equation above, there are three geometric acceleration terms on the right-hand side. The first "centrifugal acceleration" term depends only on the radial position r and not the velocity of our object, the second "Coriolis acceleration" term depends only on the object's velocity in the rotating frame vrot but not its position, and the third "Euler acceleration" term depends only on position and the rate of change of the frame's angular velocity.
Before projectile launch
The following alternate analyses of motion before the stone is released consider only forces acting in the radial direction. Both analyses predict that string tension T=mv2/r. For example, if the radius of the sling is r=1 metre, the velocity of the stone in the map frame is v=25 metres per second, and the stone's mass m=0.2 kilogram, then the tension in the string will be 125 newtons.- Map frame story before launch
- Spin frame story before launch
After projectile launch
After the stone is released, in the spin frame both centripetal and Coriolis forces act in a delocalized way on all parts of the stone with accelerations that are independent of the stone's mass. By comparison in the map frame, after release no forces are acting on the projectile at all.Viewed from a flat spacetime slice
Proper-acceleration's relationships to coordinate acceleration in a specified slice of flat spacetime follow from Minkowski's flat-space metric equation 2 = 2 - 2. Here a single reference frame of yardsticks and synchronized clocks define map position x and map time t respectively, the traveling object's clocks define proper time τ, and the "d" preceding a coordinate means infinitesimal change. These relationships allow one to tackle various problems of "anyspeed engineering", albeit only from the vantage point of an observer whose extended map frame defines simultaneity.Acceleration in (1+1)D
In the unidirectional case i.e. when the object's acceleration is parallel or antiparallel to its velocity in the spacetime slice of the observer, proper acceleration α and coordinate acceleration a are related through the Lorentz factor γ by α=γ3a. Hence the change in proper-velocity w=dx/dτ is the integral of proper acceleration over map-time t i.e. Δw=αΔt for constant α. At low speeds this reduces to the well-known relation between coordinate velocity and coordinate acceleration times map-time, i.e. Δv=aΔt.For constant unidirectional proper-acceleration, similar relationships exist between rapidity η and elapsed proper time Δτ, as well as between Lorentz factor γ and distance traveled Δx. To be specific:
where the various velocity parameters are related by
These equations describe some consequences of accelerated travel at high speed. For example, imagine a spaceship that can accelerate its passengers at "1 gee" halfway to their destination, and then decelerate them at "1 gee" for the remaining half so as to provide earth-like artificial gravity from point A to point B over the shortest possible time. For a map-distance of ΔxAB, the first equation above predicts a midpoint Lorentz factor of γmid=1+α/c2. Hence the round-trip time on traveler clocks will be Δτ = 4 cosh−1, during which the time elapsed on map clocks will be Δt = 4 sinh.
This imagined spaceship could offer round trips to Proxima Centauri lasting about 7.1 traveler years, round trips to the Milky Way's central black hole of about 40 years, and round trips to Andromeda Galaxy lasting around 57 years. Unfortunately, sustaining 1-gee acceleration for years is easier said than done, as illustrated by the maximum payload to launch mass ratios shown in the figure at right.
From each perspective a year should elapse about every two seconds or every 100/17.4 frames. After each round trip ship-pilots on this shuttle-run will have aged only half as much as colleagues stationed on earth. This is time dilation in action.
Other differences include the distance changes between co-moving stars, seen in the traveler frame. This is length contraction in action. Coordinate acceleration seen in the map frame is only significant in the year before and after each launch, while the proper-acceleration felt by the traveler is significant throughout the voyage.
Note also the trace of a light signal initiated from each launch point, but 0.886 map years after launch. This pulse reaches the traveler at the voyage midpoint to remind them to begin deceleration. In the map frame Proxima Centauri sees the turnaround pulse before the destination star does, but the converse is true in the traveler frame. This is relative simultaneity in action. Nonetheless both observers agree on the sequence of events along any time-like world line.
In curved spacetime
In the language of general relativity, the components of an object's acceleration four-vector A are related to elements of the four-velocity via a covariant derivative D with respect to proper time τ:Here U is the object's four-velocity, and Γ represents the coordinate system's 64 connection coefficients or Christoffel symbols. Note that the Greek subscripts take on four possible values, namely 0 for the time-axis and 1-3 for spatial coordinate axes, and that repeated indices are used to indicate summation over all values of that index. Trajectories with zero proper acceleration are referred to as geodesics.
The left hand side of this set of four equations is the object's proper-acceleration 3-vector combined with a null time component as seen from the vantage point of a reference or book-keeper coordinate system in which the object is at rest. The first term on the right hand side lists the rate at which the time-like and space-like components of the object's four-velocity U change, per unit time τ on traveler clocks.
Let's solve for that first term on the right since at low speeds its spacelike components represent the coordinate acceleration. More generally, when that first term goes to zero the object's coordinate acceleration goes to zero. This yields...
Thus, as exemplified with the first two animations above, coordinate acceleration goes to zero whenever proper-acceleration is exactly canceled by the connection term on the far right. Caution: This term may be a sum of as many as sixteen separate velocity and position dependent terms, since the repeated indices μ and ν are by convention summed over all pairs of their four allowed values.
Force and equivalence
The above equation also offers some perspective on forces and the equivalence principle. Consider local book-keeper coordinates for the metric to describe time in seconds, and space in distance units along perpendicular axes. If we multiply the above equation by the traveling object's rest mass m, and divide by Lorentz factor γ = dt/dτ, the spacelike components express the rate of momentum change for that object from the perspective of the coordinates used to describe the metric.This in turn can be broken down into parts due to proper and geometric components of acceleration and force. If we further multiply the time-like component by lightspeed c, and define coordinate velocity as v = dx/dt, we get an expression for rate of energy change as well:
Here ao is an acceleration due to proper forces and ag is, by default, a geometric acceleration that we see applied to the object because of our coordinate system choice. At low speeds these accelerations combine to generate a coordinate acceleration like a=d2x/dt2, while for unidirectional motion at any speed ao's magnitude is that of proper acceleration α as in the section above where α = γ3a when ag is zero. In general expressing these accelerations and forces can be complicated.
Nonetheless if we use this breakdown to describe the connection coefficient term above in terms of geometric forces, then the motion of objects from the point of view of any coordinate system can be seen as locally Newtonian. This is already common practice e.g. with centrifugal force and gravity. Thus the equivalence principle extends the local usefulness of Newton's laws to accelerated coordinate systems and beyond.
Surface dwellers on a planet
For low speed observers being held at fixed radius from the center of a spherical planet or star, coordinate acceleration ashell is approximately related to proper acceleration ao by:where the planet or star's Schwarzschild radius rs=2GM/c2. As our shell observer's radius approaches the Schwarzschild radius, the proper acceleration ao needed to keep it from falling in becomes intolerable.
On the other hand, for r>>rs, an upward proper force of only GMm/r2 is needed to prevent one from accelerating downward. At the Earth's surface this becomes:
where g is the downward 9.8 m/s2 acceleration due to gravity, and is a unit vector in the radially outward direction from the center of the gravitating body. Thus here an outward proper force of mg is needed to keep one from accelerating downward.
Four-vector derivations
The spacetime equations of this section allow one to address all deviations between proper and coordinate acceleration in a single calculation. For example, let's calculate the Christoffel symbols:for the far-coordinate Schwarzschild metric, where rs is the Schwarzschild radius 2GM/c2. The resulting array of coefficients becomes:
From this you can obtain the shell-frame proper acceleration by setting coordinate acceleration to zero and thus requiring that proper acceleration cancel the geometric acceleration of a stationary object i.e.. This does not solve the problem yet, since Schwarzschild coordinates in curved spacetime are book-keeper coordinates but not those of a local observer. The magnitude of the above proper acceleration 4-vector, namely, is however precisely what we want i.e. the upward frame-invariant proper acceleration needed to counteract the downward geometric acceleration felt by dwellers on the surface of a planet.
A special case of the above Christoffel symbol set is the flat-space spherical coordinate set obtained by setting rs or M above to zero:
From this we can obtain, for example, the centripetal proper acceleration needed to cancel the centrifugal geometric acceleration of an object moving at constant angular velocity ω=dφ/dτ at the equator where θ=π/2. Forming the same 4-vector sum as above for the case of dθ/dτ and dr/dτ zero yields nothing more than the classical acceleration for rotational motion given above, i.e. so that ao=ω2r. Coriolis effects also reside in these connection coefficients, and similarly arise from coordinate-frame geometry alone.