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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 Obukhov1,2 and Friedrich Hehl1,3 — 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.