Related papers: Warp drives, wavefronts and superluminality
Three very recent articles have claimed that it is possible to, at least in theory, either set up positive energy warp drives satisfying the weak energy condition (WEC), or at the very least, to minimize the WEC violations. These claims are…
The significance of the Lorentz gauge as a constraint on solutions of Maxwellian waves is discussed. It is proved that recent claims of superluminal propagation of electromagnetic waves rely on an erroneous basis.
The mechanisms leading to a seemingly superluminal propagation of light in dispersive media are examined. The anomalous dispersion near an absorption line, involved in the first experiments displaying negative group velocity propagation, is…
We investigate the propagation of gravitational waves on a black hole background within the low energy effective field theory of gravity, where effects from heavy fields are captured by higher dimensional curvature operators. Depending on…
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…
A global picture of magnetic domain wall (DW) propagation in a nanowire driven by a magnetic field is obtained: A static DW cannot exist in a homogeneous magnetic nanowire when an external magnetic field is applied. Thus, a DW must vary…
Hydrodynamic surface waves propagating on a moving background flow experience an effective curved space-time. We discuss experiments with gravity waves and capillary-gravity waves in which we study hydrodynamic black/white-hole horizons and…
''Warp drive'' spacetimes are useful as ''gedanken-experiments'' and as a theoretician's probe of the foundations of general relativity. Applying linearized gravity to the weak-field warp drive, i.e., for non-relativistic warp-bubble…
Based on the invariance of the phase of waves, plane waves was shown to propagate with negative frequencies in a medium which moves at superluminal speeds opposite to the propagation direction of plane waves. The validity of the invariance…
Gravitational waves offer a key insight into the viability of classes of gravitational theories beyond general relativity. The observational constraints on their speed of propagation can provide strong constraints on generalized classes of…
The apparent superluminal propagation of electromagnetic signals seen in recent experiments is shown to be the result of simple and robust properties of relativistic field equations. Although the wave front of a signal passing through a…
A wind passing over a surface may cause an instability in the surface such as the flapping seen when wind blows across a flag or waves when wind blows across water. We show that when a radially outflowing wind blows across a dense thin…
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…
We study the behavior of wave propagation in materials for which not all of the principle elements of the permeability and permittivity tensors have the same sign. We find that a wide variety of effects can be realized in such media,…
Warp drive spacetimes capable of superluminal transportation, were first introduced in 1994 by Miguel Alcubierre and then generalized by others. These spacetimes violated the Weak Energy Condition (WEC). Lentz proposed a new type of warp…
It is shown how, within the framework of general relativity and without the introduction of wormholes, it is possible to modify a spacetime in a way that allows a spaceship to travel with an arbitrarily large speed. By a purely local…
We address the question about the velocity of signals carried by Bessel beams wave packets propagating in vacuum and having well defined wavefronts in time. We find that this problem is analogous to that of propagation of usual plane wave…
A spacecraft pushed by radiation has the major advantage that the power source is not included in the accelerated mass, making it the preferred technique for reaching relativistic speeds. There are two main technical challenges. First, to…
The radiation-driven warping instability discovered by Pringle holds considerable promise as the mechanism responsible for producing warped, precessing accretion disks in X-ray binaries. This instability is an inherently global mode of the…
Subwavelength aperture arrays in thin metal films can enable enhanced transmission of light and matter (atom) waves. The phenomenon relies on resonant excitation and interference of the plasmon or matter waves on the metal surface. We show…