Hi. Just posting this here as I haven't been able to find anything on the interwebs. I've got an idea of increasing the thrust output of a photon rocket through the use of a magnetic field. If photons are "ripples" in the electromagnetic field, and magnets generate these photons through acceleration, if a photon rocket was accelerating, would the addition of these new photons make any appreciable difference to the overall thrust? Has someone already done this? Thanks in advance
No. Magnets rigidly affixed to a rocket - 'photon' or otherwise, will at best provide negligible radiation from magnet acceleration. Moreover, any feeble radiation so produced will act as extra drag - so-called radiation reaction which always opposes acceleration. And then there is the extra dead weight of having those magnets on board. There is a still a disputed issue wrt to radiation from strictly uniform acceleration, but whenever if ever finally resolved to everyone's satisfaction, possibility of 'magnet assisted' rocket boost will for sure not be a possible feature.
You're welcome. If you really want to investigate the math behind an accelerated magnetic dipole (think small bar magnet), a freely downloadable pdf doc is available here: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/325862029_The_vector_potential_of_a_point_magnetic_dipole Won't mean much unless having a reasonable grounding in basic EM theory. Many more articles cover the electric dipole case, and qualitatively they are identical, except the fields are duel to each other (swap E & B fields between each case), and an overall conversion factor.
If a photon rocket works by tossing photons out the back, essentially, then for each photon ejected you get a set amount of thrust, because each photon carries a set amount of momentum. You can't increase the momentum kick of such a rocket by speeding up photons, because photons already travel at the maximum possible speed. You can only increase the kick by throwing more photons out the back (per second) or by making the photons more energetic (i.e. using a higher frequency of light), or though some combination of the two.
