Related papers: Cosmologically Screwy Light
Exact plane gravitational radiation fields are presented within the framework of general relativity and their properties are described. The physics of nonlinear elliptically polarized plane gravitational waves is developed in close analogy…
We try to go beyond the geometrical optics approximation, by showing that a massless polarized particle allows a wide class of non minimal interactions with an arbitrary gravitational field. One specific example of a curvature-dependent…
Recent spectropolarimetric observations of Herbig AeBe stellar systems show linear polarization variability with wavelength and epoch near their obscured H-alpha emission. Surprisingly, this polarization is not coincident with the H-alpha…
In general relativity, it has been shown that radiation-supported atmospheres exist outside the surface of a radiating spherical body close to a radius where the gravitational and radiative forces balance each other. We calculate the…
A new conceptual approach for examining the origin of cosmic rays is developed by considering the characteristics of particle trajectory distributions in four-dimensional Euclidean space-time. Transformation of an isotropic distribution…
In this paper, light propagation in a pressure-free non-magnetized plasma on Kerr spacetime is considered, which is a continuation of our previous study [Phys. Rev. D 95, 104003 (2017)]. It is assumed throughout that the plasma density is…
In many physical situations involving diverse length scales, waves or rays representing them travel through media characterized by spatially smooth, random, modest refactive index variations. "Primary" diffraction (by individual…
Observational data imply the presence of superluminal electric currents in pulsar magnetospheres. Such sources are not inconsistent with special relativity; they have already been created in the laboratory. Here we describe the distinctive…
There have been several reports of exotic nuclear fragments, with highly unusual charge to mass ratio, in cosmic ray experiments. Although there exist experimental uncertainties which make them, at best, only candidate "exotic" events, it…
We discuss the electromagnetic measurements of rotating observers and study the propagation of electromagnetic waves in a uniformly rotating frame of reference. The phenomenon of helicity-rotation coupling is elucidated and some of the…
We show that optical beams propagating in transversally disordered materials exhibit a spin Hall effect and a spin-to-orbital conversion of angular momentum as they deviate from paraxiality. We theoretically describe these phenomena on the…
We propose a theoretical study on the electromagnetic forces resulting from the superposition of a TE and TM plane waves interacting with a sphere. Specifically, we first show that, under such an illumination condition, the sphere is…
Cosmic-ray transport in astrophysical environments is often dominated by the diffusion of particles in a magnetic field composed of both a turbulent and a mean component. This process, which is two-fold turbulent mixing in that the particle…
Light crossing dark domain walls that source a top form coupled to gauge Chern--Simons terms mixing visible and dark $U(1)$ gauge fields generically converts into dark photons. The effect is entirely localized on the wall and requires no…
Some new developments obtained in the last few years concerning the propagation of high energy cosmic rays are discussed. In particular, it is shown how the inclusion of drift effects in the transport diffusion equations leads naturally to…
Recent analysis of the Planck measurements opened a possibility that we live in a non-flat universe. Given the renewed interest in non-zero spatial curvature, here we re-visit the light propagation in a non-flat universe and provide the…
In this Letter we show that a single rectangular hole exhibits transmission resonances that appear near the cutoff wavelength of the hole waveguide. For light polarized with the electric field pointing along the short axis, it is shown that…
In the past few years, cosmic-rays beyond the GZK cut-off ($E > 5 \times 10^{19}$ eV) have been detected by leading collaborations such as Pierre Auger Observatory. Such observations raise many questions as to how such energies can be…
The optical Faraday effect describes the rotation of linear polarization upon propagation through a medium in the presence of a longitudinal magnetic field. The effect arises from a different phase delay between the right and left handed…
Complex vector light fields have become a topic of late due to their exotic features, such as their non--homogeneous transverse polarisation distributions and the non-separable coupling between their spatial and polarisation degrees of…