Fiber optics in curved space-times

Author(s)
Thomas Mieling, Mario Hudelist
Abstract

Single-mode fibers are used in fiber-optic gyroscopes to measure the Sagnac effect and are planned to be used in forthcoming experiments on the gravitationally induced phase shift in single photons. However, current theoretical models of such experiments are limited to ray-optics approximations or, if based on wave optics, to a restricted class of fiber alignments. To overcome these shortcomings, this paper develops a comprehensive perturbative scheme to solve for electromagnetic modes, i.e., monochromatic solutions to Maxwell's equations, of arbitrarily bent step-index fibers in general stationary space-times. This leads to transport equations for the electromagnetic phase and polarization that include the gravitational redshift, the Sagnac effect, a generalization of Rytov’s law to curved space, a gravitational Faraday effect in the form of shift-induced gyrotropy, as well as inverse spin Hall effects caused by fiber bending, gravitational acceleration, and space-time curvature.

Organisation(s)
Research Network Quantum Aspects of Space Time, Gravitational Physics, Dean's office of the Faculty of Physics
Journal
Physical Review Research
Volume
7
No. of pages
12
ISSN
2643-1564
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevResearch.7.013162
Publication date
02-2025
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103028 Theory of relativity, 103021 Optics, 103036 Theoretical physics
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
General Physics and Astronomy, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/0a78491d-242b-41af-9f8c-07616b82ba56