Light  

In General > s.a. [electromagnetism]; causality [light cone]; physical constants [speed].
* History: 1637 – Descartes, particles; 1678 – Huygens, waves, that slow down in refraction; 1704 – Newton, particles that speed up in refraction (it was assumed that light waves would be longitudinal, and did not exploan polarization); 1801 – Young, waves, from interference (and introduced idea of transverse waves); 1850 – Foucault, waves, from slowdown in refraction; 1905 – Planck/Einstein, photons; {# Grimaldi, Herschel}.
* Speed: The first idea that it might not be infinite was with Ole Rømer, who measured it in 1676.
* Rainbow: Can't form in the middle of the day because the Sun has to be at 40o or lower above the horizon in order for its light to refract at the right angles.
@ General references, I: in Lightman 86, 137 ff; Sobel 87; Perkowitz ThSc(93)mar [beyond the blue]; Lynch & Livingston 95; Silverman 98.
@ General references, II: Montwill & Breslin 08.
@ History: Zajonc 93; Perkowitz 96 [and art]; Park 97; Shea AJP(98) [Rømer's experiment].
@ Nature: Newton PTRS(1672), reprinted AJP(93) [colors]; Young PTRS(1802) [wave theory].

Classical Effects and Properties > s.a. aharonov-bohm; diffraction; optics; phase; polarization; radiation.
* Talbot effect: The repeated self-imaging of a diffraction grating, reported in 1836 by Henry Fox Talbot, rediscovered by Lord Rayleigh in 1881; Explained by near-field interference [@ news pw(01)jun].
* Optical black holes: Trap light inside vortices of fluid that whirl at speeds close to the speed of light in the medium (possibly real slow); According to Leonhardt, light brought to a standstill in a gas should produce a singularity analogous to the event horizon of a black hole, and emit pairs of photons similar to Hawking radiation.
@ Coherence: Picozzi & Haelterman PRL(02) [hidden coherence].
@ Orbital angular momentum: Allen et al PRA(92); Leach et al PRL(02); Padgett et al PT(04)may; Tiwari qp/06; > s.a. doppler effect.
@ Related topics: NS(90)sep1, p40-44 [rainbows]; Harris CP(95) [interference and fluctuations, speckle]; Sanz & Miret-Artes qp/07 [Talbot effect in quantum mechanics, ito Bohmian mechanics]; Götte et al PRS(07) [dragging by a rotating medium].

Anomalous Propagation > s.a. dispersion; photon; wave phenomena.
* Scharnhorst effect: Superluminal propagation in matter obtained by suppressing vacuum modes (> see casimir).
* Slowdown: 1997, 17 m/s in BEC; 2000, 1 mph in BEC; 2001, Light effectively slowed down to vg = 0, its information stored in collective spin states of a dilute Rb gas, with the possibility of reading it out later; However, most light packets lose their shape when their speed is decreased, which limits their applicability in telecommunications; 2004, optical solitons made to move at 10–6 c.
* Standstill: 2002, Achieved in crystals, can be useful for high-density information storage for quantum computing.
@ Superluminal: Valentini PLA(89); news Nat(90)mar; Scharnhorst PLB(90); Barton PLB(90); Wang et al Nat(00)jul; Jackson et al PRA(01)phy/00; Shore gq/03-in, ht/07 [from quantum field theory effects]; Chen et al a0807 [control].
@ Slowdown: Vestergaard Hau et al Nat(99)feb [17 m/s in BEC]; Fiurasek et al PRA(02)qp/00; Phillips et al PRL(01) + pn(01)jan; news pn(07)may.
@ Standstill: Vestergaard Hau SA(01)jul; Bajcsy et al Nat(03)qp [storage and release of pulses in Rb].

Other Propagation Effects > s.a. photon; Reflection; Refraction.
@ Various materials: Neutze & Stedman PRA(98) [accelerating media]; Ward CP(99) [photonic materials]; Michinel et al PRE(02) + pn(02)jul ["light droplets"]; Ramakrishna & Armour AJP(03)cm/02 [absorbing media]; Li & Sun qp/05 [3+1-level atoms].
@ Inhomogeneous: Piwnicki IJMPA(02) [geometrical].
@ Multiple scattering: Lagendijk & van Tiggelen PRP(96).

In Gravitation and Cosmology > s.a. doubly special relativity; observational cosmology [birefringence].
@ Propagation in curved spacetime: Gibbons PLB(93) [cosmic strings]; Manzano & Montemayor PRD(97) [rotating mass]; Kopeikin et al CQG(06)gq [in multipole fields]; de Felice et al ApJ(06)ap [Solar System]; Brouzakis et al ap/07, Marra et al PRD(07)-a0708 [random swiss-cheese model]; > s.a. FRW spacetimes.
@ Gravitational interactions: Faraoni & Dumse GRG(99)gq/98; > s.a. tests of general relativity with light, phenomenology.
@ In cosmology: Ellis et al CQG(98) [lensing and caustic effects]; Mustapha et al CQG(98) [distance-redshift].
@ Effective metric: Novello & Salim PRD(01) [non-linear dielectric].
@ Optical black holes: Leonhardt & Piwnicki PRA(99)phy, PRL(00)cm/99 + pn(00)jan; Visser PRL(00)gq; Brevik & Halnes PRD(02)gq/01; Leonhardt Nat(02)phy/01, gq/01-in; Royston & Gass gq/02 [with radial flow]; De Lorenci et al PRD(03).

Quantum Aspects > s.a. Chemical Potential; localization; photon; QED; quantum gravity effects; radiation; Wave-Particle Duality.
@ Interactions: Sørensen & Sørensen a0711 [with ensemble of identical atoms].

Applications > s.a. earth [atmospheric optics]; optical technology [including lasers].
@ Colors: Weinberg GRG(76); Pease AJP(80)RL; Rossotti 88; Perkowitz ThSc(91)may; Gage 93, 99; Nassau 01; Kentsis phy/05 [Goethe's theory].
@ Art: Rossing & Chiaverina 99 [II, introductory physics for visual arts]; Taft & Mayer 00 [painting].


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