2001/07/18 by James Evans, J. C. Evans, P. M. Alsing +5 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Black Holes and Theoretical Physics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #gr-qc
paper · pdf · doi:10.1119/1.1389281
published as Am.J.Phys. 69 (2001) 1103-1110 · 20 pages, latex, ps and pdf. To appear in Am.J.Phys September, 2001
arxiv created 2001/07/18 · openalex publication_date 2001/10/01 · arxiv updated 2009/11/30 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
We consider the propagation of massive-particle de Broglie waves in a static, isotropic metric in general relativity. We demonstrate the existence of an index of refraction that governs the waves and that has all the properties of a classical index of refraction. We confirm our interpretation with a Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin solution of the general-relativistic Klein–Gordon equation. Finally, we make some observations on the significance of the optical action.