Related papers: Superluminal propagation from IR physics
Researchers claim to have observed superluminal (faster than light) propagation of a laser pulse in a gain medium by a new mechanism in which there is no distortion of the pulse [Nature, 406, 277 (2000)]. Our analysis shows that the…
The causal properties of curved spacetime, which underpin our sense of time in gravitational theories, are defined by the null cones of the spacetime metric. In classical general relativity, it is assumed that these coincide with the light…
Recently Van Flandern concluded from astrophysical data that gravity propagates faster than light. We demonstrate that the data can be explained by current theory that does not permit superluminal speeds. We explain the origin of apparently…
Dissipative relativistic fluid dynamics is not always causal and can favor superluminal signal propagation under certain circumstances. On the other hand, high-energy nuclear collisions have a microscopic description in terms of QCD and are…
Many theoretical and experimental investigations have presented a conclusion that evanescent electromagnetic modes can superluminally propagate. However, in this paper, we show that the average energy velocity of evanescent modes inside a…
This paper examines some of the recent experiments on superluminal propagation. It is well known that Sommerfeld and Brillouin analyzed a rectangular sinusoidal signal propagating through a dispersive medium and derived expressions to…
Nonlinear waves are a robust phenomenon observed in complex systems ranging from mechanics to ecology. Fronts are fundamental due to their robustness against perturbations and capacity to propagate one state over another. Controlling and…
Phase singularities are universal features found across diverse wave systems. Their ensembles exhibit distance correlations governing exotic material phases. However, the full correlations in phase-space have remained unexplored and…
Though both theoretical and experimental investigations have revealed the superluminal behavior of evanescent electromagnetic waves, there are many disputes about the physical meaning and validity of such superluminal phenomenon, which is…
Gravitational waves propagate at the speed of light in general relativity, because of its special relativistic basis. However, light propagation is linked to the electromagnetic phenomena, with the permittivity and permeability constants as…
The purpose of this paper is to present mathematical evidence that electromagnetic near-field waves and wave groups, generated by an oscillating electric dipole, propagate much faster than the speed of light as they are generated near the…
The paper elucidates the physical basis of experimental results on superluminal signal velocity. It will be made plausible that superluminal signals do not violate the principle of causality but they can shorten the luminal vacuum time span…
The well-known diffusion theory describes propagation of light and electromagnetic waves in complex media. While diffusion theory is known to fail both for predominant forward scattering or strong absorption, its precise range of validity…
We suggest a possible interpretation of the recent observation by the OPERA collaboration of superluminal propagation of neutrinos. We show that it is in principle possible that the group velocity of neutrinos exceeds the speed of light…
We show that linear superpositions of plane waves involving a single-valued, covariantly stable dispersion relation $\omega(k)$ always propagate outside the lightcone, unless $\omega(k) =a+b k$. This implies that there is no notion of…
Photonic tunneling permits superluminal signal transmission. The principle of causality is not violated but the time duration between cause and effect can be shortened compared with an interaction exchange with velocity of light. This…
It is now well-known that vacuum polarisation in QED can lead to superluminal low-frequency phase velocities for photons propagating in curved spacetimes. In a series of papers, we have shown that this quantum phenomenon is dispersive and…
Unstable systems such as media with inverted atomic population have been shown to allow the propagation of analytic wavepackets with group velocity faster than that of light, without violating causality. We illuminate the important role…
The concept of superbandwidth refers to the fact that a band-limited signal can exhibit, locally, an increase of its bandwidth, i.e., an effective bandwidth greater than that predicted by its Fourier transform. In this work, we study the…
This paper extends current knowledge on electromagnetic wave scattering from bounded moving media in several regards. First, it complements the usual dispersion relation of moving media, $\omega(\theta_\mathbf{k})$ ($\theta_\mathbf{k}$:…