Spatial dispersion of light rays propagating through a plasma in Kerr spacetime
High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena
2019-02-06 v2 General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology
Abstract
We investigate the propagation of light through a plasma on a background Kerr spacetime via a Hamiltonian formulation. The behaviour of light when propagating through a vacuum and through a plasma is not the same; the convolution of gravitational and plasma effects gives rise to a dispersion in both space and time. The magnitude of the dispersion is a strong function of both the ray frequency and impact parameter. We discuss implications for the detection of gravitationally bent pulsar beams near the Galactic centre.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1901.03733,
title = {Spatial dispersion of light rays propagating through a plasma in Kerr spacetime},
author = {Tom Kimpson and Kinwah Wu and Silvia Zane},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1901.03733},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
9 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in MNRAS