On the foundations of relativistic optics (Q2568670)

The authors use a special (moving) nonholonomic frame in the relativistic study of certain light flows. This frame is determined, essentially, by two congruences \((\Gamma,\widehat\Gamma)\) such that the first one is temporal and the second one is of light type. One obtains the fundamental properties of a light flow, expressed in the considered nonholonomic frame, then one studies the evolution of a light tape as well as the relative deformation and rotation of its shadow. The authors obtain the explicit form of the absolute and relative characteristics of a light flow, then they study the relative stationarity of a null congruence, the case where the fluid \(\Gamma\) is transported by parallelism, and the case of a geodesic flow.