Gravitational red-shift and deflection of slow light

TL;DR

This paper investigates how gravity-induced redshift affects slow light propagation in dispersive media, leading to light bending, and proposes experimental methods to observe this effect.

Contribution

It introduces a novel analysis of gravitational effects on slow light and suggests experimental techniques for detection, combining heuristic and rigorous approaches.

Findings

Gravity causes redshift in slow light within dispersive media.

Redshift leads to spatial variation in refractive index and light bending.

Proposed weak value measurement techniques to detect gravitational effects.

Abstract

We explore the nature of the classical propagation of light through media with strong frequency-dependent dispersion in the presence of a gravitational field. In the weak field limit, gravity causes a redshift of the optical frequency, which the slow-light medium converts into a spatially-varying index of refraction. This results in the bending of a light ray in the medium. We further propose experimental techniques to amplify and detect the phenomenon using weak value measurements. Independent heuristic and rigorous derivations of this effect are given.