Related papers: Fermat's principle in quantum gravitational optics
Vacuum polarisation in QED in a background gravitational field induces interactions which effectively violate the strong equivalence principle and affect the propagation of light. In the low frequency limit, Drummond and Hathrell have shown…
The effect of gravitational tidal forces on photon propagation in curved spacetime is investigated. It is found that the imaginary part of the local refractive index Im n(u;w) may be negative as well as positive, corresponding to a local…
In this paper we use a general version of Fermat's principle for light rays in General Relativity and a curve shortening method to write the Morse relations for light rays joining an event with a smooth timelike curve in a Lorentzian…
Using a 3+1 decomposition of spacetime, we derive a new formula to compute the gravitational light shifts as measured by two observers which are normal to the spacelike hypersurfaces defining the foliation. This formula is quite general and…
That light propagating in a gravitational field gets frequency-shifted is one of the basic consequences of any metric theory of gravity rooted in the equivalence principle. At the same time, also a time dependent material's refractive index…
The effect of currents of mass on bending of light rays is considered in the weak field regime. Following Fermat's principle and the standard theory of gravitational lensing, we derive the gravitomagnetic correction to time delay function…
We investigate the interplay between gravity and the quantum coherence present in the state of a pulse of light propagating in curved spacetime. We first introduce an operational way to distinguish between the overall shift in the pulse…
The contribution of the cosmological constant to the deflection angle and the time delays are derived from the integration of the gravitational potential as well as from Fermat's Principle. The findings are in agreement with recent results…
Causal fermion systems are introduced as a general mathematical framework for formulating relativistic quantum theory. By specializing, we recover earlier notions like fermion systems in discrete space-time, the fermionic projector and…
This conference talk elaborates on a recently discovered mapping procedure by which classical orbits and path integrals for the motion of a point particle in flat space can be transformed correctly into those in curved space. This procedure…
Using the path-integral formalism, we show that photons possess a nontrivial quantum metric in momentum space. We derive the semiclassical action and equations of motion by taking into account the quantum metric. In media with a spatially…
A deformation of special relativistic kinematics (possible signal of a theory of quantum gravity at low energies) leads to a modification of the notion of spacetime. At the classical level, this modification is required when one considers a…
This paper addresses issues surrounding the concept of fractional quantum mechanics, related to lights propagation in inhomogeneous nonlinear media, specifically restricted to a so called gravitational optics. Besides Schr\"odinger Newton…
We investigate the rotation of the polarization of a light ray propagating in the gravitational field of a circularly polarized laser beam. The rotation consists of a reciprocal part due to gravitational optical activity, and a…
We investigate the behaviour of classical and quantum fields in the conical space-time associated with a point mass in 2+1 dimensions. We show that the presence of conical boundary conditions alters the electrostatic field of a point charge…
We use numerical relativity to study the violent preheating era at the end of inflation. This epoch can result in highly nonlinear fluctuations in density and gravitational potential which feed back onto the averaged expansion rate -- an…
The analogy between dynamics and optics had a great influence on the development of the foundations of classical and quantum mechanics. We take this analogy one step further and investigate the validity of Fermat's principle in…
The general reflection and refraction laws at the metasurface with the abrupt phase shift were derived by two different methods of Fermat's principle and the boundary conditions respectively. It is found that one or two critical angles for…
The one-loop effects of vacuum polarization induced by untwisted fermions in QED in a nonsimply connected space-time with topology $S^{1}\times R^{3}$ are investigated. It is found that photon propagation in this system is anisotropic,…
Photons propagating in curved spacetime may, depending on their direction and polarisation, have velocities exceeding the ``speed of light'' c. This phenomenon arises through vacuum polarisation in QED and is a tidal gravitational effect…