Magneto-optic and electro-optic effects in electromagnetic and gravitational fields

TL;DR

This paper presents a unified algebraic framework using octonions to explain magneto-optic and electro-optic effects, and predicts gravitational influence on light polarization in cosmic environments.

Contribution

It introduces a novel octonion-based approach to unify the explanation of magneto-optic and electro-optic effects and predicts gravitational effects on light polarization.

Findings

Electromagnetic theory can derive both effects from a single force definition.

Electro-optic effect arises from a new force term in octonion space.

Gravitational fields can influence light polarization, causing birefringence in cosmic matter.

Abstract

The magneto-optic effects and electro-optic effects are the essential optic effects, although their theoretical explanations are not unified in the classical electromagnetic theory. Describing with the algebra of octonions, the electromagnetic theory can derive the magneto-optic effects and electro-optic effects from the same one force definition in the paper. As well as the magneto-optic effect is deduced from the known force term, the electro-optic effect is from the new force term in the octonion space. This description method is different to that in the quantum theory as well as the index ellipsoid approach for the electro-optic effect. One more significant inference is that the gravitational field has an impact on the rotation of linearly polarized light, and then results in the similar birefringence for the transmitted light in the cosmic matter.