Anomalous dispersion in pulsar 21-cm radiation reveals the existence of faster-than-c phenomena in near field of scatterers

TL;DR

This paper reports that 21-cm pulsar radiation exhibits anomalous dispersion effects indicating faster-than-c phenomena in the near field of scatterers, challenging traditional relativistic constraints on photon interactions.

Contribution

It provides a quantum electrodynamics explanation for superluminal-like effects observed in astrophysical signals, highlighting near field photon emission and absorption processes.

Findings

Observation of faster-than-c signals in pulsar radiation

Near field photon interactions can produce superluminal effects

Quantum electrodynamics explains anomalous dispersion phenomena

Abstract

At passage of 21-cm pulsar radiation through clouds of neutral hydrogen atoms the signal in the region of anomalous dispersion is appearing as faster-than-c. As unlike laboratory researches separate scatterers are located on big distances from each other, this effect can be attributed only to the consecutive independent scattering on isolated atoms. For its explanation we must accept that photons are emitted and absorbed on the distances \lamda/2, in a near field, instantaneously. Such peculiarity of near field has been established earlier within the frame of QED and explains, quantitatively and qualitatively, different "superluminal" observations. It shows that processes of absorption and reemission of photons do not submit to requirements of special relativity describing only uniform movements, and consequently possibilities of faster-than-c phenomena in the near field are not excluded.