Related papers: Fermat's principle in quantum gravitational optics
In quantum theory, the curved spacetime of Einstein's general theory of relativity acts as a dispersive optical medium for the propagation of light. Gravitational rainbows and birefringence replace the classical picture of light rays…
In this paper, we seek to find a modified theory of gravity that accounts for the back-reaction of QED on curved spacetime. It is already known that vacuum fluctuations induce interactions between gravity and photons. An effective action…
Vacuum fluctuations of quantum fields are altered in presence of a strong gravitational background, with important physical consequences. We argue that a non-trivial spacetime geometry can act as an optically active medium for quantum…
We investigate general properties of optical interferometry in stationary spacetimes and apply the obtained results focusing on quantum-optical experiments in near-Earth environments. We provide a rigorous expression for the…
The Fermat principle is advocated to be a convenient tool to analyze the light propagation in a curved space time. It is shown that in the weak deflection regime the light ray trajectories can be systematically described by applying the…
Refraction at the interface between two materials is fundamental to the interaction of light with photonic devices and to the propagation of light through the atmosphere at large. Underpinning the traditional rules for the refraction of an…
The effective action for QED in curved spacetime includes equivalence principle violating interactions between the electromagnetic field and the spacetime curvature. These interactions admit the possibility of superluminal yet causal photon…
Using the 1+3 formulation of stationary spacetimes we show, in the context of gravoelectromagnetism, that the plane of the polarization of light rays passing close to a black hole undergoes a rotation. We show that this rotation has the…
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…
New form of Fermat's principle for light propagation in arbitrary (i.e. in general neither static nor stationary) gravitational field is proposed. It is based on Herglotz extension of canonical formalism and simple relation between the…
Rotation of polarization in an external gravitational field is one of the effects of general relativity that can serve as a basis for its precision tests. A careful analysis of reference frames is crucial for a proper evaluation of this…
This paper presents a survey of the Fermat principle within the framework of general relativity, tracing its evolution from classical optics to its modern variational formulation in Lorentzian geometry. In particular, we provide its proof…
We apply Perlick's (1990a) rigorous formulation of the Fermat principle in arbitrary spacetimes to prove the correctness of the description of gravitational lensing by gravitational waves, given in the literature using the scalar and vector…
Fermat's principle and variational analysis is used to analyze the trajectories of light propagating in a radially inhomogeneous medium with a singularity in the center. It is found that the light trajectories are similar to those around a…
This work considers the way that quantum loop effects modify the propagation of light in curved space. The calculation of the refractive index for scalar QED is reviewed and then extended for the first time to QED with spinor particles in…
The main goal of the present paper is to study how polarization of photons affects their motion in a gravitational field created by a rotating massive compact object. We study propagation of the circularly polarized beams of light in a…
A number of general issues relating to superluminal photon propagation in gravitational fields are explored. The possibility of superluminal, yet causal, photon propagation arises because of Equivalence Principle violating interactions…
The coupling between the electromagnetic and gravitational fields results in "faster than light" photons and invalids the Lorentz invariance and some laws of physics. A typical example is that the first and third laws of geometric optics…
We consider the gravitational correction to (electronic) vacuum polarization in the presence of a gravitational background field. The Dirac propagators for the virtual fermions are modified to include the leading gravitational correction…
Time reflection and refraction are temporal analogies of the spatial boundary effects derived from Fermat's principle. They occur when classical waves strike a time boundary where an abrupt change in the properties of the medium is…