Ray-tracing and Interferometry in Schwarzschild Geometry

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that vacuum in Schwarzschild spacetime exhibits intrinsic optical anisotropy, challenging the conventional isotropic assumption and impacting gravitational lensing interpretations.

Contribution

It provides evidence that the optical behavior of vacuum in Schwarzschild geometry is inherently anisotropic, using coordinate integration and ray-tracing methods.

Findings

Null geodesics and ray-tracing results agree in anisotropic medium

Conventional isotropic models are inconsistent with tensor algebra

Vacuum anisotropy persists even when metric is made isotropic

Abstract

Here, we investigate the possible optical anisotropy of vacuum due to gravitational field. In doing this, we provide sufficient evidence from direct coordinate integration of the null-geodesic equations obtained from the Lagrangian method, as well as ray-tracing equations obtained from the Plebanski's equivalent medium theory. All calculations are done for the Schwarzschild geometry, which results in an anisotropic (pseudo-isotropic) optical equivalent medium when Cartesian coordinates are taken. We confirm that the results of ray-tracing in the equivalent medium and null geodesics are exactly the same, while they are in disagreement with the results of integration in the conventional isotropic equivalent medium of Schwarzschild geometry. Based on the principle invariance of physical due to coordinate transformation, there exist just one result. This Contradiction will be solved by tensor algebra and it will be shown that the conventional isotropic approach is wrong, and even by making isotropic of the metric, the optical behavior of vacuum will remain anisotropic. Hence, we conclude that the true optical behavior of curved spacetime must be anisotropic, and it is an intrinsic property of vacuum in the presence of gravitational field. We provide further discussions on how to detect this possible anisotropy, and what further consequences might be expected in the interpretation of gravtiational lensing data.