Related papers: Fermat's principle in quantum gravitational optics
The images of many distant galaxies are displaced, distorted and often multiplied by the presence of foreground massive galaxies near the line of sight; the foreground galaxies act as gravitational lenses. Commonly, the lens equation, which…
Using the Fermat's principle in curved space-time with stationary type metric, we have obtained the speed of light as a function of spatial coordinates and hence the corresponding refractive index. The whole region with space dependent…
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…
In 1+3 (threading) formulation of general relativity spacetime behaves analogous to a medium with a specific index of refraction with respect to the light propagation. Accepting the reality of zero point energy, through the equivalence…
Previous studies on spacetime index of refraction are mostly restricted to the static spacetimes. In this study we fill this gap by introducing the refractive index for full stationary spacetimes, employing three different approaches. These…
The photon vacuum polarization effect in curved spacetime leads to birefringence, i.e. the photon velocity becomes greater than (or less than) the speed of light depending on its polarization. We investigate this phenomenon in a…
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…
Mimicking the description of spinning particles in General Relativity, the Fermat Principle is extended to spinning photons. Linearization of the resulting Papapetrou-Souriau type equations yields the semiclassical model used recently to…
We start with formulation of the generalized Fermat's principle for light propagation in a curved spacetime. We apply Pontryagin's minimum principle of the optimal control theory and obtain an effective Hamiltonian for null geodesics in a…
This paper studies the impact of vacuum polarization on light propagation in the background of a distorted, deformed compact object. Focusing on a spacetime containing two quadrupole parameters associated with the central object and…
Vacuum polarization in QED in a background gravitational field induces interactions which {\it effectively} modify the classical picture of light rays as the null geodesics of spacetime. After a short introduction on the main aspects of the…
Vacuum polarization in QED in a background gravitational field induces interactions which {\it effectively} modify the classical picture of light rays, as the null geodesics of spacetime. These interactions violate the strong equivalence…
Quantum phenomena such as vacuum polarisation in curved spacetime induce interactions between photons and gravity with quite striking consequences, including the violation of the strong equivalence principle and the apparent prediction of…
Fermat's principle is fully generalized to the case where a smooth interface separates two cone structures -- Lorentz-Finsler lightcones -- representing wave propagation in a potentially inhomogeneous, anisotropic, time-dependent and…
The nature of superluminal photon propagation in the gravitational field describing radiation from a time-dependent, isolated source (the Bondi-Sachs metric) is considered in an effective theory which includes interactions which violate the…
The photon motion in a Michelson interferometer is re-analyzed in both geometrical optics and wave optics. The classical paths of the photons in the background of gravitational wave are derived from Fermat principle, which is the same as…
Geometric optics effectively describes the propagation of electromagnetic waves when the wavelength is much smaller than the characteristic length scale of the medium, making wave phenomena like diffraction negligible. As a result, light…
In arXiv:1105.5629, equations of the modified geometrical optics for circularly polarized photon trajectories in a stationary spacetime are derived by using a (1+3)-decomposed form of Maxwell's equations. We derive the same results by using…
The influence of quantum fluctuations of the electromagnetic field on the propagation of a polarized light wave in a nonlinear dielectric is investigated. It is shown that in some cases, the fluctuations couple to the optical nonlinearities…
The present work shows that through a suitable change of variables relativistic dynamics can be mapped to light propagation in a non-homogeneous medium. A particle's trajectory through the modified space-time is thus formally equivalent to…