2020/03/31 by Dominik J. Schwarz, Jishnu Goswami, Aritra Basu
Physics and Astronomy · #Achromatic lens #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #Classical mechanics #Cosmology and Gravitation Theories #Dark Matter and Cosmic Phenomena #Eikonal equation #Geometrical optics #Optics #Physics #Quantum mechanics #Ray #Spacetime #astro-ph.IM #gr-qc #hep-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.103.l081306
published as Phys. Rev. D 103, 081306 (2021) · 3 pages, reference added, typos corrected
arxiv created 2020/03/31 · openalex publication_date 2021/04/27 · arxiv updated 2021/05/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/06
We present a concise derivation of geometric optics in the presence of axionic fields in a curved spacetime. Whenever light can be described via geometric optics (the eikonal approximation), the only difference to the situation without axionic field is the phenomenon of achromatic birefringence. Consequently, redshift of light and distance estimates based on propagating light rays, as well as shear and magnification due to gravitational lensing are not affected by the interaction of light with an axionic field.