On the influence of Earth’s rotation on light propagation in waveguides

Author(s)
Thomas B Mieling
Abstract

We analyse the influence of Earth's rotation on the propagation of light in optical media. This is done using both geometrical optics and a perturbative calculation based on Maxwell's equations in rotating coordinates in flat spacetime. Considering light propagation in cylindrical step-index waveguides in particular, the first order correction to electromagnetic modes is computed. The calculation shows that Earth's spin causes a weak mode coupling, giving rise to sidebands, whose amplitudes are computed as well. The correction to the dispersion relation derived here allows to assess the anisotropy of light propagation due to Earth's rotation. The linearisation of this result is found to agree numerically with a simple formula derived from geometrical optics.

Organisation(s)
Gravitational Physics
Journal
Classical and Quantum Gravity
Volume
37
No. of pages
39
ISSN
0264-9381
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6382/ababb2
Publication date
10-2020
Peer reviewed
Yes
Austrian Fields of Science 2012
103021 Optics, 103028 Theory of relativity
Keywords
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Physics and Astronomy (miscellaneous)
Portal url
https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/on-the-influence-of-earths-rotation-on-light-propagation-in-waveguides(d35860ab-daa4-465b-a779-ba5cb2725cd2).html