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Related papers: Causality and Superluminal Light

200 papers

Gravitation has interesting consequences for plane wave propagation in a vacuum. The propagation of plane waves with phase velocity directed opposite to the the time-averaged Poynting vector is investigated for a generally curved spacetime.…

Space Physics · Physics 2009-11-10 Tom G. Mackay , Akhlesh Lakhtakia , Sandi Setiawan

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…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2025-07-14 Mohd Ali , Vardarajan Suneeta

We develop a perturbative theory that describes a superluminal refractive perturbation propagating in a dispersive medium and the subsequent excitation of the quantum vacuum zero-point fluctuations. We find a process similar to the…

We argue that ``effective'' superluminal travel, potentially caused by the tipping over of light cones in Einstein gravity, is always associated with violations of the null energy condition (NEC). This is most easily seen by working…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2013-08-20 Matt Visser , Bruce Bassett , Stefano Liberati

In this paper we have shown that squeezed modified quantum vacua have an effect on the background geometry by solving the semi-classical Einstein Field Equations in modified vacuum. The resultant geometry is similar to (anti) de Sitter…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2016-11-15 Salwa Al Saleh

Real world quantum systems are open to perpetual influence from the wider environment. Quantum gravitational fluctuations provide a most fundamental source of the environmental influence through their universal interactions with all forms…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2016-02-10 Teodora Oniga , Charles H. -T. Wang

We argue that superluminal signal propagation is possible in consistent Poincare invariant quantum field theories in two space-time dimensions, provided spatial parity is broken. This happens due to existence of the ``instantaneous'' causal…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2009-01-16 Sergei Dubovsky , Sergey Sibiryakov

We report the experimental demonstration of the superluminal propagation of multi-spatial-mode images via four-wave mixing in hot atomic vapor, in which all spatial sub-regions propagate with negative group velocities. We investigate the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2012-06-06 Ryan T. Glasser , Ulrich Vogl , Paul D. Lett

The propagation of signals in space-time is considered on the basis of the notion of null (isotropic) vector field in spaces with affine connections and metrics as models of space or of space-time. The Doppler effect is generalized for…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2007-05-23 Sawa Manoff

Gravitational waves (GW), as light, are gravitationally lensed by intervening matter, deflecting their trajectories, delaying their arrival and occasionally producing multiple images. In theories beyond general relativity (GR), new…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2021-01-04 Jose María Ezquiaga , Miguel Zumalacárregui

I discuss various formulations of stochastic Einstein locality (SEL), which is a version of the idea of relativistic causality, i.e. the idea that influences propagate at most as fast as light. SEL is similar to Reichenbach's Principle of…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2007-08-17 Jeremy Butterfield

We show that the vacuum permeability and permittivity may originate from the magnetization and the polarization of continuously appearing and disappearing fermion pairs. We then show that if we simply model the propagation of the photon in…

General Physics · Physics 2013-05-31 Marcel Urban , Francois Couchot , Xavier Sarazin , Arache Djannati-Atai

The light-rays and wave fronts in a flat class of Godel-type metric are examined to reveal the causality violating features of the space-time. Non-causal features demonstrated by the development of unusual wave front singularities are shown…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2025-08-19 Thomas P. Kling , Faizuddin Ahmed , Megan Lalumiere

We discuss Cosmic Microwave Background constraints on the causal set theory of quantum gravity, which has made testable predictions about the nature of dark energy. We flesh out previously discussed heuristic constraints by showing how the…

Astrophysics · Physics 2008-11-26 Joe Zuntz

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…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2024-04-18 Lorenzo Gavassino , Marcelo M. Disconzi , Jorge Noronha

Propagation of electromagnetic plane waves in some directions in gravitationally affected vacuum over limited ranges of spacetime can be such that the phase velocity vector casts a negative projection on the time-averaged Poynting vector.…

Optics · Physics 2009-11-10 Akhlesh Lakhtakia , Tom G. Mackay

Wave packet broadening in usual quantum mechanics is a consequence of dispersion behavior of the medium which the wave propagates in it. In this paper, we consider the problem of wave packet broadening in the framework of Generalized…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2009-11-11 Kourosh Nozari , S. H. Mehdipour

The Dirac equation has resided among the greatest successes of modern physics since its emergence as the first quantum mechanical theory fully compatible with special relativity. This compatibility ensures that the expectation value of the…

Quantum Physics · Physics 2024-05-02 J. P. Palastro , D. Ramsey , M. Formanek , J. Vieira , A. Di Piazza

We treat a model based upon nonlinear optics for the semiclassical gravitational effects of quantum fields upon light propagation. Our model uses a nonlinear material with a nonzero third order polarizability. Here a probe light pulse…

General Relativity and Quantum Cosmology · Physics 2014-07-23 C. H. G. Bessa , V. A. De Lorenci , L. H. Ford

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…

High Energy Physics - Theory · Physics 2023-03-20 Mariana Carrillo Gonzalez , Claudia de Rham , Victor Pozsgay , Andrew J. Tolley