Related papers: Stable Causality and Microcausality for Drummond-H…
It has been known for a long time that vacuum polarization in QED leads to a superluminal low-frequency phase velocity for light propagating in curved spacetime. Assuming the validity of the Kramers-Kronig dispersion relation, this would…
In the wave equation obeyed by electromagnetic fields in curved spacetime there are Riemann and Ricci curvature coupling terms to the photon polarisation, which result in a polarisation dependent deviation of the photon trajectories from…
Physical principles such as unitarity, causality, and locality can constrain the space of consistent effective field theories (EFTs) by imposing two-sided bounds on the allowed values of Wilson coefficients. In this paper, we consider the…
In this work we discuss the emergence of approximate causality in a general setup from waveguide QED -i.e. a one-dimensional propagating field interacting with a scatterer. We prove that this emergent causality translates into a structure…
The effect of vacuum polarization on the propagation of photons in curved spacetime is studied in scalar QED. A compact formula is given for the full frequency dependence of the refractive index for any background in terms of the Van…
We examine the recent statement by A. Dolgov and I. Novikov that superluminal propagation of light, which is induced by the quantum corrections to the photon propagation in gravitational field, permits non-causal signal propagation. For…
As an analog model of general relativity, optics on some two-dimensional (2D) curved surfaces has been increasingly paid attention to in the past decade. Here, in light of Huygens-Fresnel principle, we propose a theoretical frame to study…
I discuss the idea of relativistic causality, i.e. the requirement that causal processes or signals can propagate only within the light-cone. After briefly locating this requirement in the philosophy of causation, my main aim is to draw…
We reconsider the issue of superluminal propagation in the DGP model of infrared modified gravity. Superluminality was argued to exist in certain otherwise physical backgrounds by using a particular, physically relevant scaling limit of the…
We distinguish between the notions of asymptotic causality and infrared causality for gravitational effective field theories, and show that the latter gives constraints consistent with gravitational positivity bounds. We re-explore the…
Under the assumption that a UV theory does not display superluminal behavior, we ask what constraints on superluminality are satisfied in the effective field theory (EFT). We study two examples of effective theories: quantum electrodynamics…
Effective field theories are constrained by the requirement that their constituents never move superluminally on non-trivial backgrounds. In this paper, we study time delays experienced by photons propagating on charged shockwave…
Relativistic microcausality is the statement that local field operators commute outside the light-cone. This condition is known to break down in low-energy effective theories, such as $P(X)$ models with a derivative interaction term of the…
We define the Hartle-Hawking no-boundary wave function for causal set theory (CST) over the discrete analogs of spacelike hypersurfaces. Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo and numerical integration methods we analyse the wave function in non-…
We simplify the warp drive space-time so that it becomes stationary and the distorsion becomes one-dimensional and static. We use this simplified warp drive space-time as a background for a photon field. We shall especially use the…
Photons propagating in curved spacetime may, depending on their direction and polarisation, have velocities exceeding the ``speed of light'' c. This phenomenon arises through vacuum polarisation in QED and is a tidal gravitational effect…
In this paper, we analyze the causal structure of Generalized Quadratic Gravity (GQG) and Einsteinian Cubic Gravity (ECG). It is well known that gravitons in higher-curvature theories can exhibit superluminal propagation, rendering the…
Effective field theories (EFT) are strongly constrained by fundamental principles such as unitarity, locality, causality, and Lorentz invariance. In this paper, we consider the EFT of photons (or other $U(1)$ gauge field) and compare…
We consider a nonlinear dielectric medium surrounding a static, charged and spherically symmetric compact body which gravitational field is driven by General Relativity (GR). Considering the propagating waves on the dielectric medium, we…
Hawking's stable causality implies Sorkin and Woolgar's K-causality. The work investigates the possible equivalence between the two causality requirements, an issue which was first considered by H. Seifert and then raised again by R. Low…