A laser beam in an
experiment propagates along the two-dimensional surface of
a glass object
shaped like an hourglass, curling once around the middle of the object.
This is an example
of an object with negative surface curvature (like a saddle,
for example), in
contrast to an object with positive surface curvature, such as a sphere.
(Image: Vincent
Schultheiß)
(January 15, 2016) To
investigate the influence of gravity on the propagation of light, researchers
usually have to examine astronomical length scales and huge masses. However,
physicists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and
Friedrich Schiller University Jena have shown that there is another way. In a
recent issue of the journal Nature Photonics they find the answers to
astronomical questions in the laboratory, shifting the focus to a previously
underappreciated material property – surface curvature
According to Einstein’s general theory of relativity,
gravity can be described as the curvature of four-dimensional spacetime. In
this curved space, celestial bodies and light move along geodesics, the
shortest paths between two points, which often look anything but straight when
viewed from the outside.
The team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Ulf Peschel from
Friedrich Schiller University Jena used a special trick to examine the
propagation of light in such curved spaces in the laboratory. Instead of
changing all four dimensions of spacetime, they reduced the problem to two
dimensions and studied the propagation of light along curved surfaces. However,
not all curved surfaces are the same. ‘For example, while you can easily unfold
a cylinder or a cone into a flat sheet of paper, it is impossible to lay the
surface of a sphere out flat on a table without tearing or at least distorting
it,’ says Vincent Schultheiß, a doctoral candidate at FAU and lead author of
the study. ‘A well known example of this is world maps that always show the
surface in a distorted way. The curvature of the surface of a sphere is an
intrinsic property that can’t be changed and has an effect on geometry and
physics inside this two-dimensional surface.’