Related papers: No birefringence in Einstein's gravity
In both Newtonian gravity and Einstein gravity there is no force on a test particle located inside a spherical cavity cut out of a static, spherically symmetric mass distribution. Inside the cavity exterior matter is decoupled and there is…
Einstein's relativity theory appears to be very accurate, but at times equally puzzling. On the one hand, electromagnetic radiation must have zero rest mass in order to propagate at the speed of light, but on the other hand, since it…
As a basic symmetry of Einstein's theory of special relativity, Lorentz invariance has withstood very strict tests. But there are still motivations for such tests. Firstly, many theories of quantum gravity suggest violations of Lorentz…
With Einstein's inertial motion (free-falling and non-rotating relative to gyroscopes), geodesics for non-relativistic particles can intersect repeatedly, allowing one to compute the space-time curvature $R^{\hat{0} \hat{0}}$ exactly.…
Statements about relativistic effects are often subtle. In this essay we will demonstrate that the three classical tests of general relativity, namely perihelion precession, deflection of light and gravitational redshift, are passed…
The confrontation between Einstein's gravitation theory and experimental results, notably binary pulsar data, is summarized and its significance discussed. Experiment and theory agree at the 10^{-3} level. All the basic structures of…
The Einstein postulates assert an invariance of the propagation speed of light in vacuum for any observer, and which amounts to a presumed absence of any preferred frame. The postulates appear to be directly linked to relativistic effects…
There exists some confusion, as evidenced in the literature, regarding the nature of the gravitational field in Einstein's General Theory of Relativity. It is argued here the this confusion is a result of a change in interpretation of the…
The most general classical electrodynamics which still respect the linear superposition principle but allow for otherwise arbitrary birefringence require, and imply, a refined spacetime geometry described by a fourth-rank tensor field.…
We give an alternative description of the physical content of general relativity that does not require a Lorentz invariant spacetime. Instead, we find that gravity admits a dual description in terms of a theory where local size is…
We set up an Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theory in four dimensions, based on the recent formulation of pure gravity with extra dimensions of vanishing metrical length [1]. In absence of torsion, the effective field equations depend only on the…
The birefringence phenomenon in the vacuum with a constant magnetic background of arbitrary strength is considered within the framework of the effective action approach. A new feature of the birefringence in a magnetized vacuum is that the…
Einstein gravitation theory can be extended by preserving its geometrical nature but changing the relation between curvature and energy-momentum tensors. This change accounts for radiative corrections, replacing the Newton gravitation…
The Einstein equations, apart from being the classical field equations of General Relativity, are also the classical field equations of two other theories of gravity. As the experimental tests of General Relativity are done using the…
The existence of gravitational radiation is a natural prediction of any relativistic description of the gravitational interaction. In this chapter, we focus on gravitational waves, as predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity.…
Einstein's general theory of relativity is the standard theory of gravity, especially where the needs of astronomy, astrophysics, cosmology and fundamental physics are concerned. As such, this theory is used for many practical purposes…
The basic idea that gravity can be a long-wavelength effect {\it induced} by the peculiar ground state of an underlying quantum field theory leads to consider the implications of spontaneous symmetry breaking through an elementary scalar…
Contrary to general belief, the Fraunhofer lines have been found to be plasma redshifted and not gravitationally redshifted, when observed on Earth. Quantum mechanical effects cause the photons' gravitational redshift to be reversed as the…
Einstein's equations of gravitation are not invariant under geodesic mappings, i. e. under a certain class of mappings of the Christoffel symbols and the metric tensor which leave the geodesic equations in a given coordinate system…
A canonical formalism for quantum electrodynamics in curved spacetime is developed. This formalism enables a systematic investigation of photons in the Schwarzschild gravitational field, yielding novel results as well as refining previous…