A vacuum—generated inertia reaction force

Abstract. A clear and succinct covariant approach shows that, in principle, there must be a contribution to the inertia reaction force on an accelerated object by the surrounding vacuum electromagnetic field in which the object is embedded, No details of the vacuum to object electromagnetic interaction need to be specified other than the fact that the object is made of electromagnetically interacting particles. Some interesting consequences of this feature are discussed. This analysis strongly supports the concept that inertia is indeed an opposition of the vacuum fields to any attempt to change the uniform state of motion of material bodies. This also definitely shows that inertia should be viewed as extrinsic to mass and that causing agents and/or mechanisms responsible for the inertia reaction force are neither intrinsic to the notion of mass nor to the entities responsible for the existence of mass in elementary particles (as, e.g., the Higgs field). In other words the mechanism that produces the inertia-reaction-force requires an explicit explanation. This explicit explanation is that inertia is an opposition of the vacuum fields to the accelerated motion of any material entities, i.e., of entities that possess mass. It is briefly commented why the existence of a Higgs field responsible for the generation of mass in elementary particles does not contradict the view presented here. It is also briefly discussed why a strict version of Mach's Principle does really contradict this view, though a broad sense version of Mach's Principle may be in agreement.