Ulm 2004 – scientific programme

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GR: Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie

GR 2: Experimentelle Tests, Quantengravitation

GR 2.11: Fachvortrag

Tuesday, March 16, 2004, 17:50–18:10, H20

Fresnel analysis of birefringence in electrodynamics with nonminimal gravitational coupling. — •Yuri Obukhov^1,2 and Friedrich Hehl^1,3 — ¹Inst. f. Theor. Physik, Univ. zu Köln, 50923 Köln — ²Dept. Theor. Phys., Moscow State Univ., 117234 Moscow, Russia — ³Dept. Phys. Astron., Univ. Missouri-Columbia, Columbia, MO 65211, USA

In conventional Maxwell-Lorentz electrodynamics, the propagation of light is influenced by the metric, and only indirectly by the curvature or/and the torsion of spacetime. Still the light can feel these geometrical structures if they are coupled nonminimally to the electromagnetic field (which can occur due to the quantum corrections, for example). We analyse such models on the basis of generalized Fresnel equation. Applying the general framework to the sphecrically symmetric configurations of the torsion and curvature fields, we derive the optical metric of spacetime and demonstrate the birefringence effect in vacuum.