2017/11/24 by Carroll, Bradley W., Amiri, Farhang, Galli, J. Ronald
#Classical Physics (physics.class-ph) #FOS: Physical sciences #Optics (physics.optics)
paper · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1801.00679
We use a relativistic argument to define an effective photon that travels through a transparent (non-absorbing) nondispersive dielectric medium of index of refraction n. If p is the momentum of the photon in a vacuum, then the momentum of an effective photon inside the medium may be of the form p\rm eff=pnα and still reproduce the observed transverse relativistic drift when the medium is in motion. We employ an energy argument to determine the value of the exponent to be α=-1, so that the effective photon momentum is p\rm eff=p/n, which is the Abraham momentum.