Elementary particles emit their contributions to their potentials in the form of wave fronts that propagate with light speed away from their source. These wave fronts combine into fields. The superposed contributions of ALL elementary particles form a background field with a huge strength.
That background field can/will embed the particles that emitted this field. It acts as a curved "space".
The propagation of the wave fronts is governed by Huygens principle. This means that the influence of the wave front on its environment diminishes with the inverse of the distance to the source. When the distance grows, more and more particles contribute. In fact, the largest contribution to the local field strength will come from the combined action of the most distant particles.
Field theory can be used to study the implications of the existence of the background field. One of the implications will be that the acceleration of a local particle will go together with the existence of an extra field that implements inertia.
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