There appears to be sort of three or four versions or notions of “acceleration” I can think of, and I want to ask a bit about them.
There is the type of acceleration where something like thrusters are used to increase velocity for one object relative to another object.
There is a notion of (effectively) “acceleration” where if I go forward with constant velocity, measuring time with my clock, away from some planet let’s say and another ship passes under me going towards the planet, and the ship syncs its clock with mine as it passes, effectively “information has accelerated relative to earth”/the information has a change in reference frame.
There is the concept of gravitational assist that is also considered acceleration, where an object can increase/change velocity relative to some other object via a gravitational assist.
(I suppose you could also do the same with magnets and have “magnetic assist” of a magnet, where the magnet wouldn’t feel itself accelerating, or?)
First of all, is it the case that it is only the first version that is considered proper acceleration or are all considered/called proper acceleration?
A thing these scenarios have in common is a change in reference frame. They will age less relative to an object that does not engage in any of this if they start off together and then meet up.
What do these scenarios have in common that leads to a change in reference frame contra objects that do not engage in these scenarios and only “experience” the coordinate acceleration (fourth notion of “acceleration”) relative to objects that engaged in these processes (even though there of course is no universally agreed upon coordinates in space and velocities and distances always have to be defined relative to other objects)? Can that be explained in more detail or is it more accepted as a rule, that:
“If any object/information engages in one of these three scenarios of using something like thrusters, clock syncing or gravity assist, then they have a change in reference frame and objects that do not engage in any of this will not change reference frame (in a universe with no ‘official coordinates’)” ?