Search

We exhibit the first analogue model of a rotating black hole constructed in the framework of nonlinear electrodynamics. The background electromagnetic field is assumed to be algebraically special and adapted to a geodesic shear-free congruence of null rays in Minkowski spacetime, the Kerr congruence. The corresponding optical metric has a Kerr-Schild form and, it is shown to be characterized by three parameters, thus predicting the existence of an ergosurface, a horizon, and a slice identical to one also present in the Kerr metric., Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures

We demonstrate the existence of photon traps within the framework of nonlinear electrodynamics. The trapping mechanism is based on the fact that, for null background fields, the optical metric reduces to the Kerr-Schild form, which plays a prominent role in the context of black hole physics. We then construct explicit examples where photons are confined in a region of spacetime, such that a distant observer cannot interact with them. Finally, we argue that the trapping scheme is quite universal, being entirely compatible with causality, energy conditions, and hyperbolicity., Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures

We study different types of spacetime singularities which emerge in the context of disformal electrodynamics. The latter is characterized by transformations of the background metric which preserve regular (non-null) solutions of Maxwell equations in vacuum. Restricting ourselves to the case of electrostatic fields created by charged point particles along a line, we show that exotic types of singularities arise., Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures

We scrutinize the geometrical properties of light propagation inside a nonlinear medium modeled by a fully covariant electromagnetic theory in $2+1$-dimensions. After setting the nonlinear constitutive relations, the phase velocity and the polarization of waves are derived and three special cases are analyzed in details. In spite of the dimensional reduction, our model still presents phenomena like one-way propagation, controlled opacity among others for a large class of dielectric and magneto-electric parameters., Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures

In this paper, we turn our attention to light propagation in three-dimensional electrodynamics. More specifically, we investigate the behavior of light rays in a continuous bi-dimensional hypothetical medium living in a three-dimensional ambient spacetime. Relying on a fully covariant approach, we assume that the medium is endowed with a local and linear response tensor which maps field strengths into excitations. In the geometric optics limit, we then obtain the corresponding Fresnel equation and, using well-known results from algebraic geometry, we derive the effective optical metric., Comment: 12 pages, matching the published version

It is shown here that symmetric hyperbolicity, which guarantees well-posedness, leads to a set of two inequalities for matrices whose elements are determined by a given theory. As a part of the calculation, carried out in a mostly-covariant formalism, the general form for the symmetrizer, valid for a general Lagrangian theory, was obtained. When applied to nonlinear electromagnetism linearly coupled to curvature, the inequalities lead to strong constraints on the relevant quantities, which were illustrated with applications to particular cases. The examples show that non-linearity leads to constraints on the field intensities, and non-minimal coupling imposes restrictions on quantities associated to curvature., Comment: 28 pages, submitted for publication on November 24, 2021

Nonmagnetic and spherically symmetric dielectric material media are investigated in their generality as analogue models, in the domains of geometrical optics, for a few relevant static and spherically symmetric solutions of gravitation, including black holes and wormholes. Typic and desirable gravitational features are systematically linked to the nonlinear properties of the phenomenological dielectric permittivity of the medium. From this, the limitations of such analogies are explored in terms of their corresponding geometric flexibility, dielectric configurations and causal structure., Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures

It is shown that every regular electromagnetic field in vacuum identically satisfy Maxwell equations in a new manifold where the roles of space and time have been exchanged. The new metric is Lorentzian, depends on the particular solution and forces the flow of time to tilt somehow in the direction of the field lines. We give a detailed description of the transformation and discuss several of its properties, both in the algebraic and differential settings. Examples are given where the new metrics are explicitly computed and carefully analyzed. We conclude with possible applications of the transformation as well as future perspectives., Comment: 22 pages

Classical mechanics for individual physical systems and quantum mechanics of non-relativistic particles are shown to be exceptional cases of a generalized dynamics described in terms of maps between two manifolds, the source being configuration space. The target space is argued to be 2-dimensional and flat, and their orthogonal directions are physically interpreted. All terms in the map equation have a geometrical meaning in the target space, and the pull-back of its rotational Killing one-form allows the construction of a velocity field in configuration space. Identification of this velocity field with tangent vectors in the source space leads to the dynamical law of motion. For a specific choice of an arbitrary scalar function present in the map equation, and using Cartesian coordinates in the target space, the map equation becomes linear and can be reduced to the Schr\"odinger equation. We link the bi-dimensionality of the target space with the essential non-locality of quantum mechanics. Many extensions of the framework here presented are immediate, with deep consequences yet to be explored., Comment: The version accepted in PRD

Topological solitons are relevant in several areas of physics [1]. Recently, these configurations have been investigated in contexts as diverse as hydrodynamics [2], Bose-Einstein condensates [3], ferromagnetism [4], knotted light [5] and non-abelian gauge theories [6]. In this paper we address the issue of wave propagation about a static Hopf soliton in the context of the Nicole model. Working within the geometrical optics limit we show that several nontrivial lensing effects emerge due to nonlinear interactions as long as the theory remains hyperbolic. We conclude that similar effects are very likely to occur in effective field theories characterized by a topological invariant such as the Skyrme model of pions., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures

Nonlinear theories generalizing Maxwell's electromagnetism and arising from a Lagrangian formalism have dispersion relations in which propagation planes factor into null planes corresponding to two effective metrics which depend on the point-wise values of the electromagnetic field. These effective Lorentzian metrics share the null (generically two) directions of the electromagnetic field. We show that, the theory is symmetric hyperbolic if and only if the cones these metrics give rise to have a non-empty intersection. Namely that there exist families of symmetrizers in the sense of Geroch which are positive definite for all covectors in the interior of the cones intersection. Thus, for these theories, the initial value problem is well-posed. We illustrate the power of this approach with several nonlinear models of physical interest such as Born-Infeld, Gauss-Bonnet and Euler-Heisenberg.

It is shown that the causal structure associated to string-like solutions of the Fadeev-Niemi (FN) model is described by an effective metric. Remarkably, the surfaces characterising the causal replacement depend on the energy momentum tensor of the background soliton and carry implicitly a topological invariant $\pi_{3}(\mathbb{S}^2)$. As a consequence, it follows that the pre- image curves in $\mathbb{R}^3$ nontrivialy define directions where the cones remain unchanged. It turns out that these results may be of importance in understanding time dependent solutions (collisions/scatterings) numerically or analytically.

In the present paper we investigate the causal structure of the baby Skyrme model using appropriate geometrical tools. We discuss several features of excitations propagating on top of background solutions and show that the evolution of high frequency waves is governed by a curved effective geometry. Examples are given for which the effective metric describes the interaction between waves and solitonic solutions such as kinks, antikinks and Hedgehogs. In particular, it is shown how violent processes involving the collisions of solitons and antisolitons may induce metrics which are not globaly hyperbolic. We argue that it might be illuminating to calculate the effective metric as a diagnostic test for pathological regimes in numerical simulations., Comment: 15 pages, 5 figures