Berlin 2005 – scientific programme

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GR: Gravitation und Relativitätstheorie

GR 12: Grundlagen und allgemeiner Formalismus

GR 12.1: Talk

Monday, March 7, 2005, 17:00–17:15, TU BH262

Riemannian light cone from vanishing birefringence in premetric vacuum electrodynamics — •Claus Lämmerzahl¹ and Friedrich W. Hehl² — ¹ZARM, Univ. Bremen, Am Fallturm, 28359 Bremen — ²Inst. Theor. Physics, Univ. of Cologne, Zülpicher Str. 77, 50923 Köln

We consider premetric electrodynamics with a local and linear constitutive law for the vacuum. Within this framework, we find quartic Fresnel wave surfaces for the propagation of light. If we require (i) the Fresnel equation to have only real solutions and (ii) the vanishing birefringence in vacuum, then a Riemannian light cone is implied. No proper Finslerian structure can occur. This consideration is generalized to dynamical equations of any order. One important consequence of that is that for vanishing birefringence an anisotropy of the velocity of light can only be experienced by comparing properties of the velocity of light with properties of solids which description is mainly based on the Dirac equation. (Published in Phys.Rev. D 70, 2004)