Spin Hall effect of photons in a static gravitational field

2006/03/31 by Pierre Gosselin, Alain Bérard, Herve Mohrbach +1 · 3 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Atomic and Subatomic Physics Research #Classical mechanics #Equations of motion #Geodesic #Geodesics in general relativity #Gravitation #Gravitational field #Hamiltonian (control theory) #Helicity #Mathematical physics #Mechanical and Optical Resonators #Photon #Physics #Quantum #Quantum Electrodynamics and Casimir Effect #Quantum electrodynamics #Quantum mechanics #Semiclassical physics #Spacetime #cond-mat.other #hep-th

paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.75.084035

published as Phys.Rev.D75:084035,2007 · 6 pages

arxiv created 2007/04/03 · openalex publication_date 2007/04/19 · arxiv updated 2016/08/16 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

Starting from a Hamiltonian description of the photon within the set of Bargmann-Wigner equations we derive new semiclassical equations of motion for the photon propagating in a static gravitational field. These equations which are obtained in the representation diagonalizing the Hamiltonian at the order \ensuremathℏ, present the first order corrections to the geometrical optics. The photon Hamiltonian shows a new kind of helicity-torsion coupling. However, even for a torsionless space-time, photons do not follow the usual null geodesic as a consequence of an anomalous velocity term. This term is responsible for the gravitational birefringence phenomenon: photons with distinct helicity follow different geodesics in a static gravitational field.

Citations

• Modified geometrical optics of a smoothly inhomogeneous isotropic medium: The anisotropy, Berry phase, and the optical Magnus effect
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• Fermat principle for spinning light
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• Hermitian Dirac Hamiltonian in the time-dependent gravitational field
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• Non-commutative geometry and measurements of polarized two photon coincidence counts
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• Semiclassical limit for Dirac particles interacting with a gravitational field
• Topological spin transport of a relativistic electron
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• On the Dirac Theory of Spin 1/2 Particles and Its Non-Relativistic Limit

Cited by

• Geometrodynamics of polarized light: Berry phase and spin Hall effect in a gradient-index medium
• How does the photon’s spin affect gravitational wave measurements?
• Spin Hall effect of light in photon tunneling