Related papers: Pulling and lifting macroscopic objects by light
We study the strong gravitational lensing on the equatorial plane of a quasi-Kerr compact object with arbitrary quadrupole moments which can be used to model the super-massive central object of the galaxy. We find that, when the quadrupolar…
Optical tweezers are powerful tools based on focused laser beams. They are able to trap, manipulate and investigate a wide range of microscopic and nanoscopic particles in different media, such as liquids, air, and vacuum. Key applications…
In the field of optomechanics, radiation forces have provided a particularly high level of control over the frequency and dissipation of mechanical elements. Here we propose a class of optomechanical systems in which light exerts a…
Viscously damped objects driven through a periodically modulated potential energy landscape can become kinetically locked in to commensurate directions through the landscape, and thus can be deflected away from the driving direction. We…
A moving mass makes a gravitational wake in the partially ionized interstellar medium, which acts as a lens for radio-frequency light. Consequently, plasma microlensing could complement gravitational microlensing in the search for invisible…
We investigate the gravitational lens effect caused by a non-spherically distorted compact object. The non-spherical property of the gravitational potential is modeled by a quadrupole moment. Under the assumption that the quadrupole…
As one of the most influential experiments on the development of modern macroscopic theory from Newtonian mechanics to Einstein's special theory of relativity, the phenomenon of light dragging in a moving medium has been discussed and…
Nature succeeds in accelerating extended and massive objects to relativistic velocities. Jets in Active Galactic Nuclei and in galactic superluminal sources and gamma-ray bursts fireballs have bulk Lorentz factors from a few to several…
A moving dielectric medium acts as an effective gravitational field on light. One can use media with extremely low group velocities [Lene Vestergaard Hau et al., Nature 397, 594 (1999)] to create dielectric analogs of astronomical effects…
Frame dragging (Lense-Thirring effect) is generally associated with rotating astrophysical objects. However, it can also be generated by electromagnetic fields if electric and magnetic fields are simultaneously present. In most models of…
Lightsails are a promising spacecraft concept that can reach relativistic speeds via propulsion by laser light, allowing travel to nearby stars within a human lifetime. The success of a lightsail mission requires that any motion in the…
Photons are excellent information carriers but normally pass through each other without consequence. Engineered interactions between photons would enable applications from quantum information processing to simulation of condensed matter…
Radiation pressure forces in a focussed laser beam can be used to trap microscopic absorbing particles against a substrate. Calculations based on momentum transfer considerations show that stable trapping occurs before the beam waist, and…
It was recently demonstrated that laser filamentation was able to generate an optically transparent channel through cloud and fog for free-space optical communications applications. However, no quantitative measurement of the interaction…
Optical trapping, also known as optical tweezing or optical levitation, is a technique that uses highly focused laser beams to manipulate micro- and nanoscopic particles. In optical traps driven by high-energy pulses, material non-linearity…
For a long time transverse and longitudinal optical forces are used for non-contact and noninvasive manipulation of small individual particles. The following question arises: What is the impact of these forces on the ensemble of thousand…
Recent advances in Nanotechnologies have prompted the need for tools to accurately and non-invasively manipulate individual nano-objects. Among possible strategies, optical forces have been foreseen to provide researchers with nano-optical…
We demonstrate the measurement of laterally induced optical forces using an Atomic Force Microscope (AFM). The lateral electric field distribution between a gold coated AFM probe and a nano-aperture in a gold film is mapped by measuring the…
Large scale imaging surveys will increase the number of galaxy-scale strong lensing candidates by maybe three orders of magnitudes beyond the number known today. Finding these rare objects will require picking them out of at least tens of…
The dependence of macroscopic radiation pressure on the velocity of the object being pushed is commonly attributed to the Doppler effect. This need not be the case, and here we highlight velocity dependent radiation pressure terms that have…