Light propagating in a Born-Infeld background as seen by an accelerated observer

Abstract

We study the propagation of light in the Born-Infeld (BI) background as seen by an accelerated observer. In a Born-Infeld electromagnetic field, light trajectories are governed by the null geodesics of the effective optical metric. The accelerated observer is in a Rindler frame, a situation that, according to the Einstein Equivalence Principle, is equivalent to being in a uniform gravitational field. The phase velocity of light propagating through a purely magnetic or electric BI background is determined as measured by the Rindler observer. The BI field and the acceleration of the frame have opposite effects on the propagating light: while the intense electric or magnetic BI background slows down the velocity of light, in the accelerated frame light may exceed its velocity in vacuum. We consider light propagating parallel or transversal to the acceleration direction of the Rindler frame. The redshift of light pulses sent from one Rindler observer to another, in the BI background, is calculated as well.

32 pages, 15 figures

References in corpus (6)

• Evidence for vacuum birefringence from the first optical polarimetry measurement of the isolated neutron star RX\, J1856.5$-$3754
• Probing vacuum polarization effects with high-intensity lasers
• The radiation of a uniformly accelerated charge is beyond the horizon: a simple derivation
• Photon Splitting and Pair Conversion in Strong Magnetic Fields
• Birefringence and non-transversality of light propagation in an ultra-strongly magnetized vacuum
• On the spectral shift and the time delay of light in a Rindler accelerated frame