corner
corner

Phys. Rev. A 60, 4301–4312 (1999)

Optics of nonuniformly moving media

Download: PDF (426 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

U. Leonhardt1 and P. Piwnicki1,2
1Physics Department, Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Lindstedtsvägen 24, S-10044 Stockholm, Sweden
2Abteilung für Quantenphysik, Universität Ulm, D-89069 Ulm, Germany

Received 22 June 1999; published in the issue dated December 1999

A moving dielectric appears to light as an effective gravitational field. At low flow velocities the dielectric acts on light in the same way as a magnetic field acts on a charged matter wave. We develop in detail the geometrical optics of moving dispersionless media. We derive a Hamiltonian and a Lagrangian to describe ray propagation. We elucidate how the gravitational and the magnetic models of light propagation are related to each other. Finally, we study light propagation around a vortex flow. The vortex shows an optical Aharonov-Bohm effect at large distances from the core, and, at shorter ranges, the vortex may resemble an optical black hole.

© 1999 The American Physical Society

URL:
http://link.aps.org/doi/10.1103/PhysRevA.60.4301
DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevA.60.4301
PACS:
03.65.Bz, 42.15.-i, 04.20.-q