Detecting the effects of linear acceleration on the optical response of matter

We propose two feasible experimental studies of the interaction of light with linearly accelerating media. First, sidebands are induced in the output spectrum of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer when a dielectric in one arm is oscillated parallel to the beam. Second, linear acceleration of a dielectric in a ring cavity will induce asymmetry in the near-resonant optical response profile. Both experiments probe the interaction of photons with inertia by testing the covariant formulation of Maxwell’s equations used here and so the related assumption that the local optical properties of a medium are unaffected by acceleration. The second experiment is explicitly sensitive to a Doppler shift induced when light propagates through linearly accelerating media, predicted by Tanaka [Phys. Rev. A 25, 385 (1982)]. Observation of this Doppler shift would confirm a manifestation of the coupling between radiation and matter in a noninertial context.