Negative phase velocity of electromagnetic waves and the cosmological constant
Astrophysics
2017-06-14 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
High Energy Physics - Theory
Abstract
Examining the propagation of electromagnetic plane waves with the wavevector directed in opposition to the time-averaged Poynting vector in cosmological spacetime with piecewise uniform metric, we show that such negative-phase-velocity (NPV) propagation is possible in certain de Sitter spacetimes but not in anti-de Sitter spacetimes. This difference suggests the possibility of an optical/electromagnetic experiment to discern the cosmological constant of a four-dimensional universe stemming from a five-dimensional brane universe.
Cite
@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0411754,
title = {Negative phase velocity of electromagnetic waves and the cosmological constant},
author = {Tom G. Mackay and Sandi Setiawan and Akhlesh Lakhtakia},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0411754},
year = {2017}
}