# Rest frame interference in rotating structures and metamaterials

## TL;DR

This paper investigates how rotation affects interference patterns in rotating media, revealing that metamaterials can enhance optical gyroscopes by amplifying rotation-induced effects, with implications for non-inertial electrodynamics.

## Contribution

It provides a quantitative analysis of rotation effects on interference in rotating media, highlighting the role of metamaterials and clarifying the underlying physics through different momentum frameworks.

## Key findings

- Interference maxima follow curved trajectories due to rotation.
- Metamaterials with low refractive index enhance rotation effects.
- Results offer insights into the Abraham-Minkowski controversy.

## Abstract

Using the formulation of electrodynamics in rotating media, we put into explicit quantitative form the effect of rotation on interference and diffraction patterns as observed in the rotating medium's rest-frame. As a paradigm experiment we focus the interference generated by a linear array of sources in a homogeneous medium. The interference is distorted due to rotation; the maxima now follow curved trajectories. Unlike the classical Sagnac effect in which the rotation induced phase is independent of the refraction index $n$, here the maxima bending increases when $n$ decreases, suggesting that $\epsilon$-near-zero metamaterials can enhance optical gyroscopes and rotation-induced non-reciprocal devices. This result is counter intuitive as one may expect that a wave that travels faster would bend less. The apparent contradiction is clarified via the Minkowski momentum picture for a quasi-particle model of the interference that introduces the action of a Coriolis force, and by the Abraham picture of the wave-only momentum. our results may also shed light on the Abraham-Minkowski controversy as examined in non-inertial electrodynamics.