Ray optics, Fermat's principle, and applications to general relativity (Q4948709)

This monograph is about the mathematical theory of light propagation in media on general-relativistic spacetimes. All kind of information from distant celestial bodies comes to us in the form of electromagnetic radiation. In most cases the propagation of this radiation can be described, as reasonable approximation, in terms of rays. For this reason the laws of ray optics are of fundamental importance for astronomy, astrophysiscs and cosmology. According to general relativity, light rays freely propagating under only the influence of the gravitational field, are the lightlike geodesics of a Lorentzian manifold whose geometry and topology describe the space-time. However this is not true if the light ray is influenced, in addition, by an optical medium (e.g. by a plasma). In this case the trajectory of the light ray will not be a lightlike geodesic. Sometime the influence of a medium on the ray paths is negligible. But there are several cases in which this influence is well measurable, for instance the deflection of radio rays in the gravitational field of the Sun is considerably influenced by the Solar corona. Finally, even if the quantitative influence of the medium is negligibly small, one can ask in which way the qualitative aspects of the theory are influenced by the medium. This applies, in particular, in the gravitational lensing theory. The purpose of this book is to contribute to the general relativistic literature with a possibly comprehensive review of general-relativistic ray optics in media. Actually, general-relativistic light propagation in media is not usually treated in standard textbooks, and the more specialized literature is concentrated on particular types of media and on particular applications rather than on general methodology. The book is divided into two parts and the author claims that Part II may be read independently on Part I (even if he does not recommend to do it). Both parts contain a section dedicated to a brief guide to the literature. Moreover they both contain a section dedicated to the notations and assumptions. Part I provides the physical motivation to the study of light rays in optical media. It treats the question of how to derive ray optics as an approximation scheme from Maxwell equations. In vacuo, the passage from Maxwell equations to ray optics is quite elementary and treated in any textbook on the topic, as well the generalization to isotropic and non-dispersive media. However the passage to anisotropic and/or dispersive media is more subtle and two types of media are discussed in detail, an anisotropic one and a dispersive one. The material presented in Part I is, in essential, not new. However the discussion on the passage from Maxwell equations to ray optics includes several mathematical details which are difficult to find in the literature. Part II develops the mathematical formalism of Hamiltonian optics, rewritten in modern mathematical terminology and adapted to the framework of general relativity. The monograph contains some particular results that have not been known before, for instance the general redshift formula for light rays on general relativistic space-times in Section 6.2, and results on light bundles in isotropic non-dispersive media in section 6.4. In the monograph much attention is paid to variational principles for light rays, in particular the extension of the Fermat principle of classical optics to lightlike geodesics, characterizing the light rays joining an event with a timelike curve, as the critical points of a suitable functional. The author develops an infinite dimensional framework to prove the Fermat principle and partially develops a Morse Theory for such light rays, proving an extension to light rays of the celebrated Morse Index Theorem of Riemannian geodesics. Indeed he shows the number of conjugate points along the light rays equals the index form (i.e. the number of negative eigenvalues) related to the light ray. However he does not prove the extension to light rays joininig a point with a timelike curve, of the classical Morse inequalities for Riemannian geodesics, which relate the set of geodesics joining two points to the topology and the geometry of the physical manifold (the spacetime in the relativistic framework). Such relation allows to give a simple variational proof of the odd number theorem of the images. Finally the monograph contains some application to the Doppler effect in isotropic media, light rays in a uniformly accelerated medium, light propagation in a plasma on Kerr spacetime, gravitational lensing. The monograph is pleasantly written and the results are clearly presented. It is a good introduction to the topic of ray optics in media.